The Re-Invention Of Ingenium: Gloria Anzaldúa As A Modern Enactment Of The Grassian “Poet As Orator”

Ernesto Grassi is an Italian born philosopher whose primary scholarly focus was Italian Renaissance Humanist (IRH) theory. Part of this study caused him to begin analyzing the principles of rhetoric, wherein he wrote two books discussing the connection between rhetoric and philosophy. In these texts, Grassi posits IRH as a valid form of rhetorical theory, providing thoughts on the philosophers and theorists who contributed to this understanding of Humanism. This project attempts to further Grassi’s work by utilizing his ideas as a framework to analyze the way Gloria Anzaldúa constructs community in her text Borderlands.Specifically, this project isolates three key concepts of IRH theory—“work,” ingenium, and the poet as orator—in order to analyze the effectiveness of Anzaldúa’s method of community cultivation and to understand the rhetorical moves she made in this process of cultivating community. This project also examines the way Anzaldúa’s idea of mestiza consciousness expounds upon the Grassian poet as orator figure.