ROBERTO DE MESQUITA E O “ELOGIO DA SOLIDÃO” UMA LEITURA DE ALMAS CATIVAS

Abstract

Poetry of place and isolation. This is how one may define Roberto de Mesquita’s poetry, in which the landscape, and the color and expression of the isles are the great theme. The first voice heard about Mesquita´s poetry was Nemesio´s, which emphasized the poet’s ´açorianidade ´1 in Almas Cativas. Singing the sadness and the sea as a prison and destiny, he -´portuguesmente´2- connects Baudelaire and Verlaine, the metaphysical notes of Antero´s pantheism, and Mesquita´s feeling of the “Atlantic solitude”. His imaginary is plenty of souls. He is their partner, including the soul of the past of which the ruins are allegoric. For Benjamin, allegories are to the realm of thought what the ruins are to the realm of things. It is famous his image of the “Angel of History”, in a reference to the allegory in Klee´s portrait Angelus Novus. Like the angel of allegory, Mesquita, prisoner of the past, listens and sees ghosts in captivity. In the series of poems “Relicarios” there is the complexity of capturing the real world’s essence and the objects are ´hierophanies ´ about which Eliade speaks.