The Blade of Letter

Luiz Costa Lima, A Spoken-Writing and the Poetics of João Cabral

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect upon the critical essays by Luiz Costa Lima in which the author analyzes the strange place of a Brazilian or Latin-American intellectual. Working from a place that is not auspicious to the demands of writing or to the analytical efforts and being highly influenced by spoken language and overstated rhetorics, the intellectual or writer from the tropics usually feel as foreigners facing their work in their own land. They often choose to write similarly to spoken language in order to establish a more effective communication with their audience. We are going to analyze Costa Lima’s positioning towards this topic, emphasizing the author’s concepts of improvisation and auditivity. We are going to work with the books Dispersa demanda: ensaios sobre literatura e teoria (1981), Pensando nos trópicos (1991) and Frestas: a teorização em país periférico (2013). As a conclusion, we are going to demonstrate how Costa Lima’s ideas shift from the texts when considering the Brazilian thinking and literary criticism. We are going to take as an example his analyses of poems by João Cabral de Melo Neto presented in the essay “A traição consequente ou a poesia de Cabral”, from the book Lira e antilira: Mário, Drummond e Cabral (1968) and Dispersa Demanda: ensaios sobre literatuar e teoria (1981). We aim to show that studies on improvisation and auditivity are important analytical models. The texts present useful tools that help us better understand the culture and the literary production of the country.