ABSTRACT
The grotesque body involves a perpetual, never-ending metamorphosis of one form or substance into another. The tension between bodily forms of two different categories is taking place in Scylla, who is both a human being and dogs. Indeed, Scylla 'is experiencing the grotesque, suffering the logically impossible though undeniable recognition that "her loins" are also "dogs gone mad" '. Thus, as long as her metamorphosis remains incomplete, her body — composed of both human and animal forms — is grotesque. Scylla's body is the very prototype of the grotesque body, in which the pattern of 'either–or' is replaced with that of 'both–and'. This model of 'both–and', (bio)logical impossibility, features the Sigmund Freudian dream-work of 'condensation', whose name, as Lacan has noted, 'condensing in itself the word Dichtung, shows how the mechanism is connatural with poetry to the point that it envelops the traditional function proper to poetry'.
