Lisa St Aubin de Terán: la otra aventurera romántica

Abstract

Lisa St Aubin de Terán’s works: Keepers of the House (1982), The High Place (1985) and Off the Rails: Memoirs of a Train Addict (1990), two novels and a book of poetry, are discussed under the perspective of a romantic trace. After a study of the magic realism and the exoticism of the South American setting of the first two books, an analysis of the third is made upon the basis of its possible inclusion in the decadent literature of the fin de siècle. The autobiographical references, the hypersensitivity, the literary narcissism, the treatment of the self, among others, are elements that contribute to situate this writer in the revival of the realist literature of the nineteenth century. Also, the leitmotif of the journey as a way of evasion and the use of alcohol to escape from cruel reality, transform the vital experience of an artist into a literary representation of the romantic paradox of sublimation and damnation, and lead to the contradictions of the author as prophet and martyr of literature and life.