Reading as a Masquerade: Ernestina de Champourcin and the Staging of Literary Influence

Abstract

While the notion of influence has already received close attention, it has barely been analyzed from the point of view of female authors’ public self-representation. As it is demonstrated in this article, they frequently declared their debt with renowned masculine figures as a way of introducing their work in a literary tradition marked by the lack of foremothers. Taking Ernestina de Champourcin’s case –since she insisted throughout her career on her status as Juan Ramón Jiménez’s disciple–, I study the concept of influence outside the literary texts to demonstrate that this dimension of influence is crucial to understand the relationships between the women writers and the Hispanic contemporary canon.