A mirror in front of the other

highlightson specularity in 3x4, by Armando Freitas Filho

Abstract

This essay proposes a discussion concerning the book 3x4 (1985), by the carioca poet Armando Freitas Filho. From the finding that the work is laden with poems that fall within the semantic field of vision, those which make use of the poetic image of mirrors were elected for a specific debate. We argue that, in this work, the specularity – which is present in the mention of mirrors and lakes, but also in the systematic repetition of some structures and words – calls into question the simplistic binarism of the real self versus the virtual self and highlights the impasses of the individual in your relationship with the world. It is as if the specular image (which, according to Umberto Eco, does not lie) is mirrored in the poetic image (paradoxical and disturbing, according to Alfredo Bosi and Octávio Paz), and both, together and in unison, bring us to the following conclusion: since its objects of apprehension are always to escape, it is up to poetry the search – utopian, but necessary – for the status of virginal stage of language, in which the perception of the world takes place in an always inaugural way, as suggested by Heidegger in On the way to language (2003).