The Altazor poem as a deconstruction of language

Abstract

Huidobro’s famous poem Altazor, Or, a Voyage in a Parachute has been a target of accusations of unintelligibility. Critics such as Ortega (2000) state that, when reading the text “we are offered with poetry; however, as we explore it at depth, it fades into emptiness, leaving behind nothing but the trail of its inconsistency” (p. 123). Two main circumstances seem to be the causes of this impeachment. On the one hand, the violence over language exerted by the poem challenges the possibility of giving a global interpretation of the poem. On the other hand, the closing chant (VII) appears to resist any kind of interpretation since it is composed mainly of graphs that cannot be acknowledged as words. Against this appraisal, I argue that a global interpretation of Huidobro’s poem is possible and that this interpretation permits us to attribute a plural meaning to Chant VII; namely, a general meaning, a theoretical-specific meaning, and a magical meaning. In order to support this argument, I carry out two tasks. First, I present key ideas that support my thesis about the rightfulness of reading the poem as a deconstruction of language that aims to reach its phonic dimension. Then, I explain how the deconstructive process takes place along the poem and how the understanding of this destructive-creative movement unlocks the triple meaning of the final moment of this literary text – Chant VII-.