Book Section
Alberica Bazzoni
Performing the Living Present
Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva
This chapter reads Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva (1973) as a performative text that strives to capture and put into language the fleeting, flowing, and embodied temporality of the living present. From a phenomenological perspective, the constitution of temporality lies at the heart of experience and of the co-constitutive encounter of self and world, which is an embodied experience in time and of time. The first part of the chapter analyses Lispector’s concept of the present in Água Viva and interprets her use of written language as performative, highlighting the libidinal propulsion of writing as an affirmative force. The second part looks at how the temporality of the living present is performed in the text, focusing in particular on five elements: 1) the combination of philosophical and poetic language; 2) the open frame of beginning and end; 3) improvisation; 4) impersonality; and 5) the metaphor of birth. Devoid of plot, sustained by a rhythm of variations within repetitions, Água Viva mixes poetic and philosophical language to delve into the temporality of the present, which is, performatively, the present of writing.
| Title |
Performing the Living Present
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| Subtitle |
Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva
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| Author(s) |
Alberica Bazzoni
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| Identifier | |
| Description |
This chapter reads Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva (1973) as a performative text that strives to capture and put into language the fleeting, flowing, and embodied temporality of the living present. From a phenomenological perspective, the constitution of temporality lies at the heart of experience and of the co-constitutive encounter of self and world, which is an embodied experience in time and of time. The first part of the chapter analyses Lispector’s concept of the present in Água Viva and interprets her use of written language as performative, highlighting the libidinal propulsion of writing as an affirmative force. The second part looks at how the temporality of the living present is performed in the text, focusing in particular on five elements: 1) the combination of philosophical and poetic language; 2) the open frame of beginning and end; 3) improvisation; 4) impersonality; and 5) the metaphor of birth. Devoid of plot, sustained by a rhythm of variations within repetitions, Água Viva mixes poetic and philosophical language to delve into the temporality of the present, which is, performatively, the present of writing.
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
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| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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| Date |
April 28, 2026
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| Subject |
Lispector, Clarice
literary experimentalism
temporality
present
improvisation
impersonal
metaphor
birth
attunement
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| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
49
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| page end |
73
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| Source |
Performing Embodiment: Choreographies of Affect, Language, and Social Norms, ed. by Alberica Bazzoni and Federica Buongiorno, Cultural Inquiry, 39 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2026), pp. 49–73
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