Resumen

SALINAS CAMPOS, Maximiliano. De Atenea a Afrodita: La risa y el amor en la cultura chilena. Atenea (Concepc.) [online]. 2007, n.495, pp. 13-34. ISSN 0718-0462.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-04622007000100002.

Laughter is the first expressive gesture of love as affirmation of life. In this sense, it is the beginning of Chilean culture. To find its historical significance it is necessary to go beyond the colonial limits and limitations of the West. It becomes necessary to examine loving gestures that come from the Indian world as well as the Iberian world. These are the origins of our cultural life. These worlds were overshadowed by the construction of the petty bourgeois national State during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This petty State was inspired by Athena, the goddess of reason and strength, of goodness and truth. In this space, neither laughter nor true comicalness existed. Only by recovering the image of Aphrodite, the representation of the goddess of love that laughs, can we re-encounter the immense joy and enormous beauty of our legitimate social contract.

Palabras llave : Laughter; love; Aphrodite; popular culture; Chile.