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Jorge Eielson #2 - melancholic body

The Smelting Process Podcast

Release Date: 11/30/2009

The Peruvian poet, Jorge Eduardo Eielson, explores the double-meaning of the "body" in his collection "dark night of the body". In this context, it must be understood anatomically & textually alike: it is the human body that is the body of work, or the body-as-text. Eielson's anatomical language– a list of body organs –is closely linked to the emotions: the "shine of pain" & the illness "whose name is melancholy". Etymology sheds light on this, since "melancholy" comes from the Greek "melan-" (black, dark) & "cholē" (bile). The theme of melancholy warrants the anatomical language; it links the physiological to the emotional.