ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the textual representation of sexual love and emotional intimacy in the lesbian relationships in Magaly Alabau's two collections of poetry, Electra/Clitemnestra and Hermana. In the classical versions, Electra helps her brother Orestes to avenge the murder of their father Agamemnon by killing their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus who are Agamemnon's assassins. Georges Bataille also connects eroticism with violence, violation, and the sacred. He sees an undercurrent of violence as an integral part of human life. For him, taboos originated as a way to reduce the violence that prevails in life: the main function of all taboos is to combat violence. Electra's violence is related to the need of expressing her love for her mother, and being an expression of anger, jealousy, and frustration toward someone who does not respond to her feelings. In the representation of the body, images or metaphors associated with liquids play central part as they reiterate the eroticism of the text.