Poetic folds of José Paulo Paes

Abstract

José Paulo Paes chose the epigram as a recurrent form of his poetry. In addition, humor and irony are also evident marks in his verses. In this poetic way, there is the fluency between the great and the small, the local and the universal, the part and the whole, the child and the adult, life and death, which does not imply in opposition between poles, but in between interpenetrating spheres. The epigrammatic sometimes presents itself in various poetic features that articulate these pairs, as in the poem that is the object of analysis of this article, “Ode à minha perna esquerda”, from Prosas seguidas de odes mínimas (1992). The poem qualifies points of contact between the life and the poetic work of Paes, therefore presents an autobiographical profile. Initially, the analysis stars from observations already made by David Arrigucci Jr on the poem question. Afterwards, this paper seeks to amplify this analysis, focusing mainly on the categories of fragment, according to Roland Barthes (1977) and unheimlich, as described in Sigmund Freud’s (1976) records.