Mester

This article discusses representations of abinsthe consumption by two poets associated with modernismo: Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and Delmira Agustini, as gender performances. Whereas previous readings into the drinking glass trope in modernista poetry pays scant attention to the importance to the role of commodity visual culture associated with this period, this article presents context for the specificity of absinthe in modernista poetry. By examining on the one hand, how Nájera constructs contradictory scripts of male consumption and how Agustini responds to these modernista scripts, this article argues that Agustini succeeds in resolving the contradictions of gendered modernista consumption by destabilizing gender identity in her poetics.