“El protagonista de una fábula única”. Analysis of “El Narrador” by Olga Orozco

Abstract

The poetic work of Olga Orozco (1920-1999) is deeply religious, with the body serving as a central theme in her quest for the divine. In this sense, the body holds a dual significance: it acts as an impediment and as a condition of possibility. The interdisciplinary approach between literature and philosophy allows for an original reinterpretation of the body in Orozco’s work, revealing the philosophical implications of her poetic intuition. The first part explores passages where the body is viewed as an obstacle that isolates individuals and hinders their return to the divine. Her dark and disparaging imagery, such as “wall,” “burden,” and “shadow,” are analyzed. The second part examines the poem titled “El Narrador” from the book En el revés del cielo (1987) as a turning point. The body takes on a new meaning there, and the poet attributes to it the power to narrate her own story. A profound analogy between body and language emerges: their mediating function. The use of conceptual tools from hermeneutic phenomenology helps delve into the ambivalent experience of the body as portrayed in the poem. The notion of “flesh,” as the first otherness, explains the estrangement described by the poet and is an essential condition for the mediation between the self and the world, others and one's own ipseity. The hermeneutic of “El Narrador” sheds poetic light on the interpretation of the body as a sign and a condition of possibility for encountering otherness. Other readings of Orozco will likely illuminate various anthropological and metaphysical themes, as poetry and thought converge toward the same mystery.