Hortensia Búa
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and once again welcome to today´s talk. It´s a great pleasure and a privilege for me to be involved, thanks to Cristina Jarque, in this project.
My own involvement in it
focussed on Juana de Castilla, also known as Joanne the Mad, who, by the way, was the sister of Catherinne of Aragon, Henry
the VIII´s first wife.
But I will not be focussing on
her, but rather I´ll approach today the passion from a philosophical and philological
point of view.
I´ ll divide my talk into
three parts: First, I will be laying the
groundwork by giving some definitions. Then, I will speak about the
contradiction between passion an action. Finally, I will explain the
importance of external circumstances in the formation and developement of
passion in each of these particular women.
Well, let´s begin with the etimological
definition of passion. I quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica:” “Passion: from the verb “pati” to suffer, is
a suffering. It´s any state of the mind in which it is affected
by something external, such as perceptions, desire, etc. As contrasted with
action. Example the passion of the christian martyrs and the one of Jesus Christ”.
(end of quote)
Passion is also a feeling rather violent that disturbs
the soul, a feeling like wrath, jealousy, or passionate love.
Passion from the philosofical
and also from the philological point of wiew, is suppossed to leave the
sufferer motionless, unable to act. It
could be said that there is a contradiction between action and passion. Grammar
theory shows us the very clear distinction between active and passive actions.
Consider the difference between to choose
and to be chosen. In the first instance the subject delivers an action,
in the second case the person receives that action.
These 4 four women received an
action but felt the urge to respond to it.
In fact passion brought the
women analized in this book out of
themselves, and mobilized them into actions, thereby cementing their place
in history.
Because, for them, passion meant
encouragemengt, stimulus to which they gave a response, their personal answer.
And the passionate love that captured the soul of each of these women, filled
their spirit with painting, sculptures,
mistic poetry or obsessive love.
Just like Lacan, master of the
psycoanalysis, believed there is no such thing as womanhood but individual
women, it could also be said that there is no such thing as general passion but rather the
individual experience of passion. In fact, passion took a different form in each
of these women, passion was a motive that made them follow their particular
path.
And this leads to the final
point: the external influences in passion.
The spanish philosopher Ortega
y _Gasset said: “ Yo soy yo, y mi
circunstancia” That could be translated: “ I am me, and my circunstance”. Circum in latin means around, so circumstance
is everything around a person.
In fact these women are the
product of their own cinrcunstance, of every situation experienced by them, of
every event that touched them, of every human being that loved or hated them, of
every affection that wove a kind of net around them.
Frida Khalo wouldn´t have been
the same without Diego Rivera, Camille
Claudel without Rodin, Joanne of Castille
without Philip of Austria, Theresa of Avila without Jesus her god.
It´s preciselly the response
that they gave to their particular passion what personalizes each of them
in history, what gave them a personal
and untransferable role in the great
theater of the world.
To conclude my talk, I would
like to assure you that all 19 women connected to this project, developed a
passion for these iconic women. The seven illustrious psycoanalyst who reviewed
and prefaced this tome have concluded that the diversity of approaches adds a
depth of richness to this collaborative work.
All of us who participated on
this adventure are now inside this book, and through it, we hope to include you
too, because each reader can, in fact, be a secret writer who, after having
read the book, has the freedom to develop their own version.
I invite all of you to enter the universe of these 4
women, and yourselves, to get involved
in their passions.
Thank you very much for your
attention
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