ENNEGRÉCELE EL CUELLO AL CISNE. LA AMERICANIZACIÓN TARDÍA DEL SÍMBOLO DEL CISNE EN LA POESÍA DEL CONO SUR

The importance of the swan symbol in Rubén Darío, Delmira Agustini, and other Spanish-American Modernist poets—grounded in intercultural dialogue with the European myths of Leda and Lohengrin—has been the focus of numerous critical studies (by authors as prominent as Pedro Salinas and Sylvia Molloy). The Modernist swan was almost invariably white (as are the mute swan, Cygnus olor, and other European and North American swans), although a black swan (an Australian species: Cygnus atratus) occasionally appeared (for example, in Leopoldo Lugones).This presentation studies the problematic incorporation into poetry of South America's only native swan, the black-necked swan (Cygnus melancoryphus), examining how its chromatic hybridity challenges the symbolic weight invariably evoked by the foreign species. Furthermore, it explores how close observation has led, in the works of various Chilean poets (Augusto Winter, Nicanor Parra, Jaime Huenún, Lorenzo Aillapán, and Elvira Hernández), to a celebration of this swan's alternative beauty, as well as an exploration of both its role in Southern Cone ecosystems and its local myths (predominantly of Mapuche origin).