¡Y vaya si quería yo a mi juventud! Reflexiones sobre la idea de juventud a partir de la autobiografía, Impresiones y recuerdos (1893), de Federico Gamboa

Abstract

This article explores some of the ideas surrounding the concept of youth, especially those that the nineteenth-century writer and diplomat Federico Gamboa (1864- 1939) uses to sustain many of the experiences that shape his autobiography: Impressions and Memories (1893). Specifically, the above- entioned text is described in order to analyze the narrative postures that Gamboa used to construct his ‘authentic discourse’ (Pozuelo Yvanco, 2006); at the same time, this text is contrasted with some ideas of his contemporaries. The precocious confessor plays with the youth variable, especially to edit his memoirs at an early age (28 years old), but also to make himself a place among his contemporaries and justify his past, which is far removed from what the rules and rituals of the Mexican middle-class defined as desirable or suitable. Beyond the provocative character of the author, this type of documentary sources, included in the category of personal papers, allow us to approach the desires and imaginary of the Mexican middle class of a particular era: porfiriato (1876-1911).