María Zambrano and Venezuelan Poetry: A Delirium by Reyna Rivas

Abstract

María Zambrano (1904-1991) and the Venezuelan poet Reyna Rivas (1922-2011) maintained a relationship of friendship and intellectual collaboration for three decades. Several critical studies have pointed out the influence of Zambrano's thought on the poetry of Rivas in aspects such as the reflection on the poetic word, dreams or time. This study evaluates such a relationship in a shared reflection on the possibility of the reading the impulse of the nascent (the future) with the weight of time (the past), which is especially significant because it includes a substantial part of the characteristics of the writing register that Zambrano identifies as delirium in her essential “Delirium, Hope, Reason” (1959) and The Tomb of Antigone (1967). To this end, the book of poems Memorables (1975), by Rivas, is analyzed to propose a hypothesis with two branches: Memorables is a delirium in the Zambranian way (thus revealing another facet of the influence of Zambrano's thought on Rivas and, by extension, on Venezuelan poetry); and, through reflection on the verbal tense of the ante futuro, it develops a discursive solution to the tension between the future and the past of Zambranian delirium (thus contributing to illuminating Zambrano's work).