El verbo en llamasThomas Merton y las fronteras del lenguaje

Resumo

Thomas Merton considered language a means of transformative and healing action. This article aims to examine the role he assigned to it, and poetry in particular in the urgent reshaping of social and personal identities beyond the shadows of Western cultural heritage. We draw parallels between Merton’s approach to the condition of “strangeness” and the 2016 film Arrival. The film follows the struggle of her protagonist to decode the language of alien creatures that communicate through circular drawings comparable to Merton’s Zen-like “ciphers of energy.” Our reflection will delve into Merton’s similar search for a radical new language, a kind of metalinguistics and Pentecostal fire that purifies our mind-frame, and points towards a geography of silence.