This article revisits Severo Sarduy’s (1937-1993) own ideas on the body’s participation during the act of reading aloud and uses these objectives, along with theoretical foundations established by M.H. Abrams, as the basis for an unprecedented study that focuses on the reader’s oral movements during the enunciation of three erotic poems by the Cuban poet: “Inter femora” (1973), “Mete!/ Y si ardor o pudor” (1973) and “Imitación” (1992). By examining the articulation of specific elements within these poems (phonemes, punctuation, and visual arrangements), this publication demonstrates how the works’ content is recreated in the verbal gestures produced through the act of reading aloud. Moreover, this analysis places Sarduy’s original proposal within the realm of neo-baroque aesthetics while it also reveals a previously unknown aspect of his poetic expression.

In this article I demonstrate how the use of sounds and unintelligible voices in four short stories by Leopoldo Alas 'Clarín' ('Pipá', 'Cuervo', 'El Señor' and 'El dúo de la tos') offer an alternative interpretation through which readers have the possibility of escaping realism's boundaries and submerging themselves in the world of the ineffable. By analyzing the glossolalia, the descriptions of noises, and the act of reading aloud in these short stories, I expose how the objective of these particular kinds of sonic phenomena goes beyond merely complementing or situating the action and, instead, opens the texts up to a multitude of new possible readings. Furthermore, while the study of unintelligible sounds in this essay supports prior scholarship regarding Clarin's tendency to step outside the limits of realism, it also reveals one of the most innovative aspects of the Spanish author's work, which steers us directly towards early twentieth-century European avant-garde experimentation.

This project consists of a website where scholars and the general public can search our comprehensive database of Spanish author Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s aphorisms (more than 10,000) using various filters or criteria. To date, no publication, neither online nor in print, has categorized the entirety of these aphorisms in any of these ways.