Poetry: A Little-Known Aspect of Libertad Demitrópulos’s Work

Abstract

The work of a woman writer is of interest in all its manifestations; however, in the case of Libertad Demitrópulos, her poetic production has been relegated by criticism, which has paid little or no attention to it. As a consequence, in addition to the well-known shortcomings in the circulation of literary works, many readers and even critics are unaware that the author began by writing poetry, that her work was well received by her peers, and that at the time she was recognized as one of the “new voices” of the 1950s, for whom an important path in literature was foreseen.

The purpose of this paper is to rescue Libertad Demitrópulos’s poetry from that oblivion. We do so knowing that we approach it from a perspective different from that of those who dealt with this work at the time of its publication. Our study is influenced by the contributions of literary theories that reached their height in the second half of the twentieth century and, inevitably but enrichingly, by the historical perspective provided by the passage of time.

Libertad Demitrópulos published only one book of poetry, Muerte, animal y perfume, which is sufficient to demonstrate the value of her poetic work. Our study will address two aspects. First, we will attempt to show how poetic meaning is realized at the semantic level within the poem itself. Second, we will study the place of the subject in signifying activity, centered on death as an isotopy of the poetry collection.