Towards a Feminine Symbolic Order: La passió segons Renée Vivien

This article is an interpretation of the novel which Maria-Mercè Marçal published in 1994. It highlights the main elements of the feminine symbolic space constructed out of her own sexuality and declared as different from the masculine one, taking the mythical, symbolical and real character of Renée Vivien as a starting point. Around this figment of imagination the feminine past is brought to mind and a possible future is worked out, a historical and literary universe which allows us to talk about women –with a paricular emphasis placed on the woman artist– from a complete perspective. Some referents which stand out in the novel out of her own imaginary, reproduced and created by the author, are described. In this respect, the writer's intellectual, poetic and ironical response in the cultural debate which women´s creativity continues to assume is stressed, and a few keys to the respect are given.