Abstract

MONTES, Manuel R.. Poetics of Guilt and Confession in The Empty Book, by Josefina Vicens. Lit. mex [online]. 2021, vol.32, n.2, pp.101-123.  Epub Jan 17, 2022. ISSN 2448-8216.  https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.litmex.2021.32.2.29154.

The Empty Book (1958), by Josefina Vicens (1911-1988), has attributes which define it as a confessional work. This article analyzes the assertions of the protagonist of the novel José García when he experiences a deep guilt and appeals to be ambiguously forgiven for trying to write a perfect book. The guilt and the confession, predominant in the text, are tackled through the following: the rhetorical technique captatio benevolentiae; the narrator’s larval state and stripping (La Confesión. Género literario, by María Zambrano); the silence’s imposition and unfathomable condition (The Writing of the Disaster, by Maurice Blanchot); the summit of being and the incompletion as a goal (Notebooks, by Paul Valéry); the ghost novel (The Preparation of the Novel, by Roland Barthes); and the dependent or conditioned beauty, as well as the free or self-sufficient beauty (Critique of Judgment, by Immanuel Kant).

Keywords : confession; guilt; silence; denial; failure; impossibility..

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