Poetic imagination and culture complex

a bachelardian reading of Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão’s swans

Abstract

This essay aims at understanding how important concepts by Gaston Bachelard such as poetic image, material imagination and culture complex may contribute to the reading of poet Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, particularly her poems which reconfigure the relationship between poetic tradition and the theme of the swan’s song. Central to Portuguese poetry’s revolution after Poesia 61, to which the image is an important theme, Brandão’s work has “revolutionized the primitive imaginism” (Cruz, 2008). The transformative potential of the poetic image, in dialogue with worn out literary topoi (Bachelard, 2016) is mirrored in the way this Portuguese poet creates original poetic images which renew her relationship with tradition. Thus, we aim at contributing to new readings of an important poet, and to the recognition of Gaston Bachelard’s topicality in literary criticism today.