In the composite crossing perspectives that characterise Ingeborg Bachmann's writing, the polar relationship between masculine and feminine is one of the most incisive. In this essay, the author analyses the oscillating movement between the opposing poles as a principle destined to intensify the expressive capacity of the word and to dismantle codified linguistic and narrative orders. In "Malina" and in several segments of her lyrical production, the permeability of sexual poles adds to the fictional discourse a semantic power aimed at widening the horizon of signification in the direction of the elemental and of the inexpressible.
