The scenography of death in contemporary poetry
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Vicent Salvador✝
Abstract
From the perspective of new studies on spatiality, which favours the concept of place (as opposed to the broader concept of space), representations of death are linked to specific places that are typical of each culture. In our current culture, places such as the sanatorium, the hospital, the dying house, the coffin and the cemetery are often related to the concept of heterotopia designed years ago by Michel Foucault. Some types of heterotopia that are related to death have a high performance in the semiotics of contemporary poetry. In his work, the Catalan poet Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924–1993) depicts scenes of death that integrate many of these places, objects, characters and sequences of actions. This scenography, which is strongly shaped by metaphorical and metonymic mappings, is an essential ingredient of his poetic semiosis as part of the treatment of the subject matter of death and dying.
Abstract
From the perspective of new studies on spatiality, which favours the concept of place (as opposed to the broader concept of space), representations of death are linked to specific places that are typical of each culture. In our current culture, places such as the sanatorium, the hospital, the dying house, the coffin and the cemetery are often related to the concept of heterotopia designed years ago by Michel Foucault. Some types of heterotopia that are related to death have a high performance in the semiotics of contemporary poetry. In his work, the Catalan poet Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924–1993) depicts scenes of death that integrate many of these places, objects, characters and sequences of actions. This scenography, which is strongly shaped by metaphorical and metonymic mappings, is an essential ingredient of his poetic semiosis as part of the treatment of the subject matter of death and dying.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Presentation 1
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Section I. Three disciplinary approaches to the subject of death
- Death 11
- Moral ortothanasia and the right to die 23
- In the wake of loss 35
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Section II. Discourse analysis in health settings
- The gift of continuing to live in the body of someone else 49
- Giving meaning to illness and death 67
- Religion, collusion, and “fighting” 85
- Rhetoric of death in clinical case reports and clinical tales 97
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Section III. Death in literary texts
- ‘Letters to Lucilius’ and death 113
- Montaigne, the essay and the end of life 125
- Memory, mothers and post-Freudian melancholia in Mercè Rodoreda’s ‘Night and Fog’ 147
- The scenography of death in contemporary poetry 167
- Beyond the limits of death 179
- Index 195
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Presentation 1
-
Section I. Three disciplinary approaches to the subject of death
- Death 11
- Moral ortothanasia and the right to die 23
- In the wake of loss 35
-
Section II. Discourse analysis in health settings
- The gift of continuing to live in the body of someone else 49
- Giving meaning to illness and death 67
- Religion, collusion, and “fighting” 85
- Rhetoric of death in clinical case reports and clinical tales 97
-
Section III. Death in literary texts
- ‘Letters to Lucilius’ and death 113
- Montaigne, the essay and the end of life 125
- Memory, mothers and post-Freudian melancholia in Mercè Rodoreda’s ‘Night and Fog’ 147
- The scenography of death in contemporary poetry 167
- Beyond the limits of death 179
- Index 195
