Poetry and childhood in “O estudante empírico”, by Cecília Meireles

Abstract

This paper aims to interpret Cecília Meireles’s book O estudante empírico (2017), focusing on the meaning of childhood constructed in the poems “Sob as árvores da infância, altíssimas, passearemos” and “O globo”. To this end, the hermeneutic method is considered present in the critical and theoretical assumptions of Antonio Candido (2006), Norma Goldstein (2015), and Terry Eagleton (2006). Furthermore, Gaston Bachelard’s (2009) philosophical understanding of the theme of childhood in poetry is taken into account. It is noted that the interpreted texts are written in a universalist diction, marked by the innovations of modern poetry. Therefore, Cecília Meireles does not adhere to the experimental currents of the 1950’s; she maintains her individuality in writing, influenced by tradition and by modernity. In the poems, childhood is associated with the ideas of fruition, self-knowledge, freedom, memory, and imagination, aspects elaborated in the structure of the verses and in line with the book. Thus, the profile of the empirical student is composed of the sign of knowledge about oneself, appreciation of life, and the exercise of being free. Childhood proves to be one of the student’s learning tools.