page_title: Latin American poetry
section_title: The colonial era
hierarchical_section_title: Latin American poetry / The colonial era
context_page_description: Latin American poetry is the poetry of Latin America, mostly but not entirely written in Spanish or Portuguese. Latin American poems have also been composed in Mapuche, Nahuatl, Quechua, Mazatec, Zapotec, Ladino, English, and Spanglish. The unification of Indigenous and imperial cultures produced a unique and extraordinary body of literature in this region. Later with the introduction of African slaves to the new world, African traditions greatly influenced Latin American poetry. Many great works of poetry were written in the colonial and pre-colonial time periods, but it was in the 1960s that the world began to notice the poetry of Latin America. Through the modernismo movement, and the international success of Latin American authors, poetry from this region became increasingly influential.
context_section_description: During the period of conquest and colonization many Hispanic Americans were educated in Spain. The poets of this historical period followed the European trends in literature, including the style of romantic ballads as well as satire. The first Spanish American poets to gain recognition for their work were Spanish settlers with great influence in the New World, including Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533–94). He wrote widely renowned poetry praising Spanish conquests.
  A great figure in colonial era poetry is the Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, who wrote many notable works of poetry, prose, and theater in Spanish and other native languages. In her work, she took many feminist standpoints and echoed the beliefs of the Enlightenment ideals emerging in Europe. Consecutively, the Counter-Reformation challenged Sor Juana's work and any poetry or literature seem as promoting concepts of liberty and freedom. After the 1802 Haitian Revolution, circulation of liberal ideas was halted by colonizers. The struggle for independence of the Spanish Colonies saw a literature of defiance of authority and a sense of social injustice that is ever present in Spanish American poetics.
caption: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Miguel Cabrera
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