Drummond as a Reader of Cecília

Abstract

This paper analyzes a set of critical articles by Carlos Drummond de Andrade about Cecília Meireles published in different journals. It is fundamentally interesting to see how the praise of the poet – always elevated to a prominent position among her contemporaries – is linked to an ethereal image, which would be divided between the ordinary world and the universal plane, implying a mundane presence that is also absent. The intention is to investigate how Cecilia's association with the ethereal plane – she is the "goddess", the "star" – sometimes designates her person, sometimes her own poetry, whose value, for Drummond, lies in the power of suggestion and transfiguration of forms of the everyday world through a poetic perspective, which mixes what is clear and what is evanescent. When referring to the poet, this illusory game, the foundation of poetry, seems to be mirrored by Drummond in the description of Cecília as an almost magical figure that reflects what is valued in her poetic activity. We can see the description of a persona, fundamentally presented as a poet from the principles that govern her own production, which are connected to Drummond's concerns about poetry in the middle of the century.