Memory And Mourning In The Public Square

Maria Elena Walsh’s ‘Eva’ And The Politics Of Loss

Resumo

1976 in Argentina’s history was a tumultuous year, when the widow and third wife of Perón (Isabel Marines) was deposed from power by a military coup at the hands of General Rafael Videla, which was to usher in one of the bleakest chapters in Argentina’s troubled history. In 1976 María Elena Walsh published her poem ‘Eva’, an elegy of Eva Perón, who had died in July of 1952 at the young age of thirty-three. This article examines the structural workings of the poem, and argues that ‘Eva’ is not simply a poem about mourning, but a deeply political text that denounces dictatorship, state control and war. A poem written by a woman about arguably the most famous of Argentine women, this article considers the power of discourse to challenge and call into question deeply embedded coercive violence, propped up by patriarchy and a complicit and compromised Church.