«¡Detente ahí, que aquí comienza el Imperio de la Muerte!»: La inscripción en la puerta de acceso a un recinto sobrenatural. Aproximación al estudio de un motivo literario y ecfrástico

Abstract

The inscription on a door that can easily be a via to transport an individual to another reality or world can be investigated since antique literature. On this paper, the author tries to demonstrate the existence of this phenomenon as a literary motif and, in the same fashion, tries to relate it to the field of Rhetoric and discourse studies, i.e ekphrasis. Firstly, the author defines the concept of literary motif and its place on the discourse studies; meanwhile, in the second section, the author focuses on meta-writing elements which appear in antique and medieval literature. Finally, in the third part of this paper, the author tries to demonstrate the existence of a tradition in a literary motif: the inscription on a door which is a kind of portal to access to a supernatural place. A motif that can be easily found until modern literature.

Keywords

• literary motif
• meta-writing
• ekphrasis
• rhetoric
• inscription