María Zambrano and the Antiheroic Form of Knowledge. The Poetics of Decentering through Antigone, Persephone, Diotima and Cassandra

Abstract

This article explores the configuration of female figures with an antiheroic function in the philosophical-poetic work of María Zambrano, in dialogue with classical Greek myths. Through a comparative and symbolic approach, it analyzes how Zambrano inaugurates a poetics of decentering that subverts the traditional heroic logic. It is argued that the feminine in her thought does not negate heroic action, but rather transforms it into an experience of loss, descent, mediation, and active waiting. The figures of Antigone, Persephone, Diotima, and Cassandra are presented as symbols of a torn subjectivity that acquires knowledge through wounding and interiority. Each of them embodies alternative forms of resistance and knowledge that destabilize the Western heroic paradigm, proposing a more open vision of truth and power. This study contributes to the reflection on non-epic modes of feminine subjectivity and their relevance to Zambrano’s notion of poetic reason, highlighting their potential to rethink knowledge and ethics from a symbolic perspective not enclosed in the conceptual.