In “infinite fall”

an approach to Exercícios Espirituais, a poem by José Tolentino Mendonça

Abstract

This article forms part of a broader research project devoted to the poetic corpus of José Tolentino Mendonça and its relationship to spirituality. Building on previous studies — the first (2022) examining the intersection between his poetry and the mystical-spiritual tradition, and the second (2023) discussing literature as a form of spiritual exercise — this work narrows the focus to a single poem: “Exercícios espirituais”, from Teoria da fronteira (2017). The aim is to investigate how the poem reflects and reframes the notion of spiritual exercise. Two guiding questions structure the inquiry: does the poetic text reinterpret religious categories, or does it affirm them? And in what way? To address these questions, the analysis begins with Mikel Dufrenne’s insights into the potential contributions of phenomenology to literary criticism, and then proceeds to a close reading of the poem, seeking to draw from its immanence a meaning of “spiritual exercises” as an experience of infinite fall. The study argues that the poem challenges the reader to undergo the vertigo of self-emptying, thereby opening, however subtly, the possibility of a moment of illumination.