Figurations of Eros in Hilda Hilst

Abstract

This chapter explores Hilda Hilst’s complex eroticism, which oscillates vertiginously between mystical heights and the most brazen pornographic depths. Hilst compares the most prosaic of subjective experiences with idealized ones, forcing the immanent and the transcendent to coincide. As she juxtaposes these extremes, Hilst suggests a third way, another symbolic meaning for sexual life that is neither mystic nor debased. Hilst deploys the category of the obscene to mediate the ambivalent aspects of both language and human existence. The opening offered by this “obscene” third space tears a definitive slit in the literary landscape onto which her work emerges.

Some passages in this text resume, with various modifications, arguments from articles I have already published. These are “Da medida estilhaçada” In Cadernos de literatura brasileira—Hilda Hilst, São Paulo, Instituto Moreira Salles, No. 8 (October 1999); “A obscena senhora Hilst” In Idéias—livros 189, a supplement of Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro. December 5, 1990; “A prosa degenerada” In Jornal de Resenhas, Discurso Editorial/USP/UNESP/UFMG/Folha de São Paulo, São Paulo, October 3, 2003.