On the Threshold of the Poem: A Paratextual Reading of the French Influence in the Poetry of João Cabral de Melo Neto

Abstract

This article examines a significant selection of titles, dedications and epigraphs relating to French literature and architecture that João Cabral de Melo Neto places at the beginning of some of his most celebrated books and poems, such as Pedra do Sono, O engenheiro, Educação pela pedra, “Fábula de Anfion”, “Paráfrase de Reverdy” and others. These paratexts, drawn from architects such as Le Corbusier and poets such as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Reverdy and Valéry, reveal Cabral’s express desire to align himself with an artistic tradition that defines Western modernity and sets his work apart from the dominant Brazilian poetic tradition of his time. The paratexts in Cabral’s work thus become genuine declarations of commitment to a rational and radically anti-subjective poetics.