Ibáñez, Sara de (1905–1971)

Sara de Ibáñez (b. 1905; d. 1971), Uruguayan poet, literary critic, and educator. Born Sara Iglesias Casadei in Tacuarembó, she married Roberto Ibáñez in 1928. In 1940 she produced her most important collection of poetry, Canto. With a prologue by Pablo Neruda, it won the top prize in a Montevideo poetry competition in 1941 because of its wide range of vocabulary and its classical purity of form. Most distinguished among Ibáñez's eight other poetry publications is the epic poem Canto a Artigas (1952), which won a prestigious prize from Uruguay's National Academy of Letters.

Some of Ibáñez's poems reveal nature and the inner soul as sources of inspiration. A poet's poet, Ibáñez in much of her work allows often dark symbolism, ornate expression, and attention to lyrical technique to predominate over human issues. A key theme of her verses is the anguished rift between physical and spiritual love. Additional sources of inspiration are historical themes and nature.

Ibáñez's major works include Canto a Montevideo (1941), La batalla (1967), and Canto póstumo (1973). She was acclaimed as a major poet by Gabriela Mistral, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, and Cecilia Meireles.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America; Neruda, Pablo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco Aguilera and Georgette Magassy Dorn, The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape: A Descriptive Guide (1974).

Lidice Gómez Mango, Homenaje a Sara de Ibáñez (1971); A. Geysse, Diccionario universal de las letras (1973).

Additional Bibliography

Mantaras Loedel, Graciela, and Jorge Arbeleche. Sara de Ibáñez: Estudio crítico y antología. Montevideo: Editorial Signos, Instituto Nacional del Libro, 1991.

Scott, Renée Sum. Escritoras uruguayas: Una antología crítica. Montevideo: Ediciones Trilce, 2002.

                                       William H. Katra