THE ETERNAL FLAME AND THE INFINITE MELODY: READING OF A SONNET BY JORGE DE LIMA

Abstract

This article discusses the interconnections between poetry and music in a poem by Jorge de Lima - the sonnet "Essa pavana é para uma defunta", published in Livro de sonetos (1949). The relationship between poetry and music is flagrant in his poetry, not only because of the remarkable sonority of his poems, including those that stand out for their imagetic character, but also because of the broader conception of his writing. The sonnet in question, while performing in a virtuous way the celebrated classical model, also transgresses them through procedures deduced from a dialogue with musical conceptions related to the mythical, mystical, and suggestive universe present in procedures such as Richard Wagner's "infinite melody". This formal seeking, which accompanies the seeking for the figure of the dead beloved, the defunct infanta as the embodiment of poetry to be resurrected by the poet's transgressive desire, is profoundly musical in the broadest sense of the term and reveals a vast, progressive, and circular artistic vision in the poet in question, which also dialogues with Mário de Andrade's conceptions of melodic verse and harmonic verse. In the sonnet of the "defunct infanta" the classical and the modern come together erotically.