SLEEP STREET… IT'S ALL DARK! ...
Sleep in the street… It's all dark…
And my footsteps, who can hear them?
Sleep your peaceful and pure sleep,
With your lamps, with your peaceful gardens…
Sleep… There are no thieves, I assure you…
No guards to chase them…
In the dead of night, as on a wall,
The little stars sing like crickets…
The lyrical speech is built in the first person, so it is very common to confuse the writer's voice with the voice created by him, the lyrical self
The wind is sleeping on the sidewalk,
The wind twisted like a dog...
Sleep, little street... There's nothing...
Only my steps... But so light are,
Which even seem, at dawn,
Those of my future haunt...
Mario Quintana
The little poem you read now is by one of our greatest Brazilian poets: Mario Quintana. Mario wrote poems for adults and children, and in them we can hear various voices that tell us about many stories, real or fictional. These voices are usually spoken by a kind of character in the poem called the me lyric. But do you know what a “lyrical self” is?
Let's start our explanation from the word “lyrical”, which refers to a genre of poetry that is closely related to feelings. In these poems, emotions and intimate verses are sung through a lyrical self, who is the one who manifests and exposes his emotions and perceptions about life and the world. It turns out that this “I” that gives voice to the poem is nothing more than the creation of a poet to present the reflections of a subject who speaks in the first person.
As it is a discourse constructed in the first person (me), many people end up confusing the lyrical self with the poet who writes the verses. Sometimes it is the poet himself who lends his personal story to the poem. This is what happens in Carlos Drummond de Andrade's poem:
Itabirano's Confidence
Some years I lived in Itabira.
Mainly I was born in Itabira.
That's why I'm sad, proud: made of iron.
Ninety percent iron on sidewalks.
Eighty percent iron in souls.
And this alienation from what in life is porosity and communication.
The desire to love, which paralyzes my work,
comes from Itabira, from its white nights, without women and without horizons.
And the habit of suffering, which amuses me so much,
it is a sweet Itabira heritage.
From Itabira I brought several gifts that I now offer you:
this iron stone, future steel of Brazil,
this Saint Benedict of the old saint-maker Alfredo Duval;
this tapir leather, laid out on the living room sofa;
this pride, this bowed head…
I had gold, I had cattle, I had farms.
Today I am a civil servant.
Itabira is just a picture on the wall.
But how it hurts!
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
The lyrical self in Drummond's poem gave way to the poet's memories of life, therefore, in this case, it is correct to say that this is not a character invented to give voice to the emotions of the writer. It is important to remember that the lyrical self is found, above all, in the literary texts, which are those whose language is specially elaborated, in which we can find metaphors, speech figures and construction, in addition to a differentiated score. In literary texts, the imaginary universe jumps out of the hands of a writer or poet, unlike what happens with non-literary texts, which cannot be considered Literature. Did you see? Now that you know what a lyrical self is, how about reading some poems to try to find it? Good reading!
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
