El uso de categorías femeninas en la elaboración de la razón poética en María Zambrano

Abstract

This paper investigates the philosophical sources that inspired María Zambrano's Philosophy and Poetry (1939), contrasts her ideas with the history of lyricism and shows that the characteristics of what will later be called 'poetic reason' are outlined from female categories (such as those of condescension, surrender or charity), as opposed to the masculine virtues which, according to the traditional consideration, impel theoretical reason to impose a logical order on the material world, acting as an instrument for its domination. The three lectures gathered in Thought and Poetry in Spanish Life are also used to highlight that Zambrano follows the tradition of her teachers Ortega and Zubiri, as well as Spanish mystic poetry. As a consequence, it is pointed out that her fundamental ideas can in no way be linked to Heidegger, whom in any case she anticipates; rather, they coincide with the aesthetic principles of the first German romanticism. Zambrano echoes Schelling, Novalis or Hölderlin, who expanded the field of reason to create a sensitive religion, which sought to unite the plurality of sensation with the unity of reason and heart, in which the female figure and virtues occupied an important place.