Thresholds and corporality: views on old age in Claribel Alegría’s Poetry

Abstract

In this article, we explore the views on old age that the Nicaraguan-Salvadoran author Claribel Alegría (1924-2018) offers in her poetic work. To do this, we look for evidences in his verses, that portray the various perspectives of her approachment to this topic, and we will also collect statements by the author in various interviews, in order to delve into her perspectives. We will focus on two fundamental notions for her poetics: the body and the threshold. Corporality is a form of awareness and self-awareness of her deterioration, but also a reflection on the need for the body to age, and thus reflect the experiences of love. The idea of ??the threshold implies the exact moment in which the passage to another place is expected, the awareness of the preparation for a journey not yet made, so that it represents the old age that recognizes the proximity of death. This will allow us to delve into the meanings that Alegría gives to the effects of old age on the body, memories, time, and the transit to death, and what words and images hace been chosen to represent them. The scarcity of studies dedicated specifically to this perspective and the depth of the author’s conceptions justify our contribution.