Short story and poetism: Life in the text or a "poetic of existence"

Abstract

Julio Cortázar establishes in his Tunnel Theory (1947) a fusion between existentialism and surrealism, configuring a world view that allows man an effective apprehension of reality. This idea will have its most important manifestation in the renovation of language, means of expression and formulation of realities, considering that a restricted language, conditioned on Judeo-Christian Western tradition and on Greco-Latin forms of rational thought, suppose the acceptance of a limited world. These theoretical considerations have been applied successfully to the study of Cortázar’s novels, whose maximum expression will be found in Hopscotch (1963). However, there are few research lines that have been orientated to a contextualized reading of Tunnel Theory relating to Julio Cortázar’s short stories, that are so important among his own literary works and, in general, in Latin American and universal literature of the twentieth century. Taking this into account, short stories like those of Bestiario (1951) and Final del juego (1956) include many of the theoretical contents of Tunnel Theory, and they express them, regardless of subsequent novels: in the renovation of poetic imaginary; in the fantastic content, defined by the innate sensitivity of the author and his particular metabolization of surrealism; and in his «poetic of existence», that associates life and text in consonance with the search for authenticity characteristic of the arts and sciences of the twentieth century.