Reading in light of the letter

a graphematic-typographic analysis of “MEMOS”, by Augusto de Campos

Abstract

This paper is an invitation to revisit the work of poet Augusto de Campos, considering new theoretical developments in language studies focused on the writing system, such as the punctuation theories of Catach, the autonomous graphematics of Anis and the typographic studies of Bringhurst and Lupton, among others. The object of the analysis is “MEMOS”, a poem from 1976 that uses the characters of Letraset type sheets, employing different typographic families in order to build a manifestation that explores its linguistic, visual and spatial dimensions. The objective was to understand which new and possible reading perspectives a study based on Graphematics and Typography could bring to the literary work of Augusto de Campos. Such reading has shown that the poem’s typographic choices materialize the image of a collection of memories and moments in the page’s visuality, something that the poet calls “instants of light” in his verses.