The Invention of the Lyric Body: The Body of Helen in Hispanic Literature and Visual Arts

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Osvaldo Cleger

The Invention of the Lyric Body

The Body of Helen in Hispanic Literature and Visual Arts

Osvaldo Cleger

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English

Palgrave Macmillan
16 November 2025

Literary theory; Literary studies: general; Literary studies: post-colonial literature; Cultural studies; Gender studies, gender groups

Series: Literatures of the Americas

This book examines the evolution of the female lyric body in Western culture through the figure of Helen of Troy, focusing on the Hispanic literary archive and its evolving strategies for representing her and her cultural doubles, here defined as Helen-like bodies. It explores literary subgenres dedicated to body representation and the techniques used to capture the body’s complexity, socially coded beauty, and evocative power within distinct ideological and aesthetic frameworks. It also investigates the relationship between literary description and pictorial portraiture across the covered period, using an interdisciplinary approach that includes feminist theory, literary studies, ekphrastic criticism, rhetoric, and visual culture. Through this lens, the book introduces the concept of the lyric body as a canvas for societal values and ideologies, a surface densely inscribed with emotive and symbolic signifiers. The lyric body emerges as a cumulative construct, shaped by centuries of reinterpretation and reflecting shifting power structures and paradigms.

In following Helen and her afterlives, this study reveals how female bodies are idealized, codified, fractured, erased, or given voice. It shows how the lyric body has remained a central, contested surface in Hispanic literature and visual culture and how it continues to engage questions of gender, visibility, and representation.

By: Osvaldo Cleger
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Country of Publication: Switzerland
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 148mm,
ISBN: 9783032076601
ISBN 10: 3032076609
Series: Literatures of the Americas
Pages: 374
Publication Date: 16 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Osvaldo Cleger is Associate Professor of Spanish at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He specializes in literature and visual arts, with a focus on Spain and Latin America.