Indifference: from life as transcendence to life as a crack

Abstract

The article aims at demonstrating how Nicanor Parra’s (Chile, 1914-2018) antipoetry proposes a negative relation in face of the lyrical paradigm in poetry. We characterize this relation as “indifference”. In order to do so, we examine Parra’s humour and irony, having as a reference the Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zupančič’s reflexions on comedy. The specific case of the relation between humour and religion, in antipoetry, is reflected upon through the prism of the idea of profanation. Our arc of reflection is established by the hypothesis that Parra’s antipoetry paradigm would be that of an “ontological immanent incompleteness”, as oppose to the transcendental totalisation of lyrical poetry, a trace shared with a comic structure of the discourse.