The Duel as Language: Three Approaches to the Poetics of João Cabral de Melo Neto

Authors

  • David Siqueira Fontes Neto Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Tocantins

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22456/2236-6385.145160

Abstract

The collection A escola das facas (1980), by João Cabral de Melo Neto, elaborates a poetic reconstruction of the geography and ethos of Pernambuco, marked by an eccentric memorialist proposal. The work explores the autobiographical element, transposed into a biographeme, shifting the focus from the subject to the objects. From this book, the poem “Duelo à pernambucana” portrays a fight in the backlands, symbolizing tensions and the synthesis of an unstable and provisional unity. Based on this poem, this study analyzes the use of memory as a poetic motif, the approach to the theme of death and the poetic articulation between conflicting dichotomies as a pretext for metapoetic discourse.

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Author Biography

David Siqueira Fontes Neto, Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Tocantins

Professor no Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Tocantins. Doutorando em Letras: Linguística e Teoria Literária na Universidade Federal do Pará. Mestre em Ciência da Literatura pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. E-mail: david.neto@ifto.edu.br. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4163-4126.

Published

2025-06-07

How to Cite

FONTES NETO, David Siqueira. The Duel as Language: Three Approaches to the Poetics of João Cabral de Melo Neto. Cadernos do IL, [S. l.], n. 68, p. 233–250, 2025. DOI: 10.22456/2236-6385.145160. Disponível em: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/cadernosdoil/article/view/145160. Acesso em: 22 aug. 2026.

Issue

Section

Artigos de estudos literários