“Poetry is a dangerous game”. Life, poetry and madness in El infierno musical (The Musical Hell) by Alejandra Pizarnik

Abstract

In relation to the poetical works of the argentine authoress Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972), this article suggests the presence of lines that connect the life and the poetry , and, on the other hand, a way of poetical delirium that updates a feature of madness in her poetry. First, are examined, in a brief way, certain aspects of Pizarnik’s life in which is possible to perceive the fingerprints of madness. For it, there are in use the “categories of human activities”, developed by Michel Foucault in his Between Philosophy and Literature. Then, develops an analysis of her poetry, in relation to probable forms of delirium that are present in her poetical writing . There, is checked the possibility of recognizing a form of pleasure in the permanence in a state of madness, which relates to the pleasure that produces in Pizarnik to inhabit a poetical territory, where she can “rave as she pleases”. For the above mentioned, it is appealed again to Foucaut ‘s thought, exposed in The Psychiatric Power.