"A Noite Escura Mais Eu": modernity and the Sublime in the Representation of the Feminine in Cecília Meireles

Abstract

This work proposes a reflection about feminine themes related to the poetic-symbolist tradition in the poetry of Cecília Meireles. Thus, the aim is to resize the discussion about the representation of the feminine, in order to demonstrate a path specific to Cecilian lyricism, in which the romantic-symbolist aesthetic ensemble gradually approaches the everyday and contemporary experience, a phenomenon that is characteristic of Cecília Meireles' unique modernity. In other words, the poet seems to personalize and to bring to the soil of the historic experience of the woman — Brazilian, engaged to her time — the power of a tradition linked to transcendence, to tragedy, to greatness, focused on the language of the sublime. In the end, modernity in Cecília Meireles demonstrates engagement to the present time and critical dialogue with tradition, being, therefore, resistant to modernist fads. Through the prism of the sublime it is possible, then, to understand the effective contribution of the romantic and symbolist experiences to twentieth-century poetry, and how in Brazil Cecília Meireles' work is one of its highlights.