Symbolism of the rain in Alvaro Mutis

Abstract

In the present article the author looks at the world of meanings associ-ated with the rain, a recurrent aymbol of fertility and death in the poetry of  Alvaro  Mutis.  In  this  work,  rain  connects  with  water,  the  river  and the sea, and expresses itsef as two great opposing poles. On one hand the rain, with its unending and monotonous repetition is a metaphor: it means waste, inevitableness and the smallness of human life in front of  the  natural  elements  and  its  own  destiny.  On  the  other  hand,  rain possesses a liminal value that dilutes time and reconnects ego with his past and tries to recompose a fragmented identity. This twofold condi-tion of the rain makes it one of Mutis’s central elements of his poetry and connects it with his own vision of poetical language. The books Los trabajos perdidos (1965) and Reseña de los hospitals de ultramar (1955) and the poet’s reflections in the Diario de Lecumberrí (1960) have been used for this review.