O drama da beleza na poesia de Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

Abstract

When we celebrate the centenary of the birth of the Portuguese author (1919-2004), who won the Camões Prize in 1999 and whose body lies in the National Pantheon, in Lisbon, since 2014, a critical revisitation of her poetic work is still justified. She is the most prominent female figure in the gallery of Portuguese poets of the 20th century and is patroness of the Chair of Poetry and Transcendence of the Portuguese Catholic University, in Oporto, directed by José Rui Teixeira. Belonging to the important generation of "Cadernos de Poesia", with Jorge de Sena and other poets from the period of Second World War and Cold War, she produced a unique imagist poetics of Mediterranean clarity and Apollonian beauty. However, the present study seeks to show that Beauty in Sophia, usually associated with unstrained and solemn serenity, involves a dramatic and Dionysian character that introduces an element of vitality and transcendence, which forces a revision of its place in the history of aesthetic forms of contemporary Portuguese poetry.