RAÚL ZURITA’S TOTAL WORK OF ART: THE MULTIPLE POSSIBILITIES OF LANDSCAPE

Abstract

This article studies the Chilean poet Raúl Zurita’s poetry as a total work of art divided into to two fundamental stages, while placing a particular focus on the use of landscape as a method that allows the poet to inscribe the signs of horror, desperation, and compassion on the page and in the physical environment. The first stage analyzed in this article is delimited by Zurita’s self-infl icted facial wound (1975) and the publication of La vida nueva (1994), while the second begins with INRI (2003) and concludes with Zurita (2011). While a comparative approach to Zurita’s work is employed, the analysis will focus on his most important books (Purgatorio, Anteparaíso, Canto a su amor desaparecido, La vida nueva, INRI, Los países muertos y Zurita). This article likewise analyzes Zurita’s various corporal and geographical interventions and their meaning, both poetic and iconic-textual, within his diverse poetry collections and within his project as a whole. This study makes use of textual and historical analysis, as well as interviews with the author and critical studies.