Rubén Darío, Latino Poet

This essay examines the circulation of works by the Latin American modernista poet Rubén Darío in US Spanish-language periodicals during the early twentieth century. These poems index the immense influence that modernismo had on US Latino/a literature. Modernismo has sometimes been understood as reflecting the conservative politics of an ascendant bourgeoisie; however, the varying contexts in which Darío’s poems appeared suggest that modernismo acted as a flashpoint for class conflict in the US Latino/a literary field. The poems thus help clarify the emergence of US latinidad in relation to hemispheric latinoamericanismo.