Chapter Entre la licentia poetica y la psicopatología. ¿Qué haré yo con esta espada? (Aproximación a la Ley y al problema de la Belleza) de Angélica Liddell en diálogo con Erich Fromm

Overview & Synopsis

This article is an attempt to analyse the text ¿Qué haré yo con esta espada? (Aproximación a la Ley y al problema de la Belleza) by Angélica Liddell from the perspective of Erich Fromm's psychoanalysis, with particular focus on his concept of necrophilic orientation. The German psychoanalyst diagnosed this orientation in people fascinated by death, decay, disease, decomposition, who put material goods before human well-being and treated their fellow human beings in an instrumental, sadistic and destructive manner, being incapable of creating truly deep bonds based on Love. Liddell's works not only overflow with all these elements, but also try to convince the viewer that the dark vision of human beings presented on stage is the only true and possible one, despite the author's awareness that she suffers from a cognitive bias. We therefore approach this play, first presented in 2016, in which Liddell goes so far as to sing the praises of murderers and cannibals, from the perspective of psychopathology, with an emphasis on Fromm's necrophilic orientation.