SOURCE: Van Hooft, Karen S. “Vipers, Victims, and Virgins: Women and Their Relationships with Men in the Poetry of Nicanor Parra.” In Theory and Practice of Feminist Literary Criticism, edited by Gabriela Mora and Karen S. Van Hooft, pp. 256-78. Ypsilanti, MI: Bilingual Press, 1982.

In the following essay, Van Hooft focuses on Parra's poetic persona's excoriation of contemporary institutions, including sexual stereotyping and Freudian analysis, that have led to the decay of male-female relationships.

One aspect of the work of the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra that has been insufficiently studied is the role played by women and the related themes of love and sex. This is surprising, for even a superficial examination of Parra's works from Poemas y antipoemas (1954) to the controversial Artefactos (1972) reveals a considerable preoccupation with women and with men's relationships to them.

The typical analysis of this theme in Parra's poetry has focused on his...