A myth of water: from the Styx lagoon to Spanish-American poetry

Abstract

In accordance with a myth-critical perspective, we treat the topic of water in Alfonsina Storni's literature as a lyrical anticipation of the idea of ​​personal death, based on the analogical model of the waters of the Styx lagoon; we will observe that the poetic recreation bases its effect on the emotional intensity latent in the common imagination and whose representation comes from the Greco-Roman tradition. We present the mythical topic to underline its dominant notes; then, we synthesize its reference value; finally, we select the most conclusive examples of Storni's poetry in which the semantic field of the word "water" appears, directly evoking the idea of ​​death to verify the symbolic content attributed to the natural element.