Manuel Silva Acevedo: Wolfs, Sheeps and Sheeperds

Abstract

The motifs of the Shepherd, the sheep and the wolves (Jer. 23, 3; 31, 10; 50,119) are already present in the Old Testament. The New Testament reintroduces this expositive strand (Mt.9, 36, 10, 16; 15, 24) posing that the "little flock" would be chased by both out-group (Rom. 8,36) and in-group wolves, disguised as sheep (Mt.7,15).

The metaphor contained in these elements (Christ the Shepherd's concern for his lost and threatened sheep) is projected into the world of Chilean poetry specifically through Manuel Silva Acevedo's work Lobos y ovejas. This is a remarkable case of literary intertextuality which links biblical parable with its interpretation by a lay poet. This interpretation goes into the tragic dimension of men in depth; that of being doomed to be a sheep eaten by a wolf or that of being a wolf which tears sheep to pieces. Going back and forth from one text to another is what renders an analysis as attractive, and that is what is proposed in this text; an analysis that gives the opportunity for a different and unexpected third interpretation, in which it is the sheep which eats the wolf and redeems it in exchange to its own transformation into an evil wolf.

This first vision is consistent with Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic approach. This coherence is precisely what allows reinforcing the interpretation we propose in Silva Acevedo's aforementioned work. This present study starts, in consequence, with a quote by Ricoeur, taken from "Hermeneutics and the critique of ideology" (1973), which adequately supports the inclusion of biblical theology categories in the analysis of a poetic work. Since this stated work deals with sheep and wolves, it seems appropriately to set up the present analysis in the context of what critics know about the so-called "Bestiary". According to this and after Paul Ricoeur's quote, our study will develop in three stages: a) The "Bestiary" in universal literature; b) The "Bestiary" in the Bible, and c) The "Bestiary" in Manuel Silva Acevedo's work.