Of the friction between the poetic speaker and the public. Humor and ethics in Mario Montalbetti’s Notas para un seminario sobre Foucault

Abstract

Mario Montalbetti's Notas para un seminario sobre Foucault (2018) is a long poem that fictitiously recreates the dynamics of a university seminar, taking as its referent the transcription of Deleuze's courses on Foucault. In this paper I focus primarily on the moments of interaction between the poetic speaker (who plays the teacher) and the audience they addresse (of which the reader of the poem, extradiegetically, is also a part). I start from the assumption that the humorous charge of the poem rests there, which allows me to reveal an affinity with classical comedy and a parodic reading of the university lecture. Finally, the records of omission of the audience are seen as a form of resistance, as a testimonial trace against the abuse of authority of the speaker. Mostly, this title has been approached in the already few critical works from its philosophical-linguistic-poetic charge, but to a lesser extent from the comedy in it.