Estética milleriana de lo sublime : un encuentro entre Henry Miller y la posmodernidad

Abstract

In this article I try to develop a point of encounter between Henry Miller's text and the paradigmatic discourse of postmodernism. Having found a poetical space in which both may establish a mutual dialogue, the so-called acsthetic of the sublime. It analyses its representation in the Miller's fiction. Knowing that the aesthetic of the sublime is not an aesthetic that consolidates the forms of beauty and pleasure but a continuos effort to produce ambiguous, eclectic, polystylistic (use of multiple genres, tones, narrative techniques), fragmentary, paradoxical and contradictory texts that reflect postmodern man and woman's state of mind, and knowing as well that the sublime seeks communication with the collective voice to avoid any trade of elitism, which during Modernity kept the artist far away from his receptor. I maintain that Miller's text claims a similar anti-aesthetic that produces its author's catharsis. Miller's anti-aesthetic uses obscene language in order to seize the reader's attention by means of scandal and outrage, and therefore, Millerian sexual imagery cannot only be regarded as pornographic but also as a means of self-liberation through the criticism of North American religious and moral traditions. Furthermore, we can find those elements that constitute the aesthetic of the sublime in Miller's contextual representational antiaesthetic. Thus, ambiguity creates confusion and contradiction in the fictional realm. Fragmentation is reflected in the nature of the narrative subject as well as in the main character ¿both Miller-- so that chaos is conscious or unconsciously introduced in the text. Narrative and formal poly-stylism together with gender eclecticism lead the reader to expect the unexpectable, sudden change of literary techniques and a dialogue with the narrator concerning his text Finally, the narrative inconsistence and the abstraction of characters play an important role in Miller's text as the first two connect the third one with postmodernism.