Melancolía y desvanecimiento en el poema “El húsar” (1953) de Álvaro Mutis

Abstract

In this article we analyze in Álvaro Mutis's poem El húsar [The Hussar] (1953) the theoretical problem of fading of the I as a characteristic of melancholy theorized in Lacan´s psychoanalytical theory. We demonstrate how the psychoanalytical method could be applied to literary analysis as an original hermeneutical tool that offers a valuable approach in the study of literature. Our main argument in this article is that in the poem El húsar the hero's self is set in an ongoing process of fading where the frontier between subject and object tend to disappear. At the end of this semantic process the signifier loses its symbolic value and the real of death is what lasts.

Keywords

• Álvaro Mutis
• poetry
• psychoanalytical method
• fading
• melancholy
• object