Até múmia um dia muda: permanência e transitoriedade em algo antigo, de Arnaldo Antunes

Abstract

In this dissertation, we propose reading the book algo antigo (2021), by Arnaldo Antunes, although there are also references to other works by the artist and poet from São Paulo. Our reading sought to pay attention to his interest in the notion of time and the images that suggest permanence and transience inscribed in the poems we selected. Our study investigated how Antunes mobilizes poetic resources that are recurrent in his work, updating them through new procedures to compose distinct temporalities. This dissertation is organized into four chapters. In the first, we discuss the centrality of the verbal sign and the word in the book in question. Then, in the second chapter, we interpret the possible meanings of the image present in the title algo antigo, based on the reading of the initial poem, “al(anti)go”, and the last, “algo antigo”, observing how the difference in spelling interferes (and alters) the reading of these poems. In the third chapter, we examine the manifestation of subjectivity in Arnaldo Antunes’ poems, noting the way in which lyricism occurs in this book. To this end, we base ourselves on Michel Collot’s considerations regarding the lyrical subject outside of himself. Finally, in the fourth and final chapter, we establish connections with the album Novo mundo (2025), which resumes the reflection on time and is, up until the moment of conclusion of this research, the artist’s most recent musical work. Throughout our text, we refer to authors in the field of intermedia studies, such as Lars Elleström and Jørgen Bruhn; and to the book Lírica e lugar-comum: algumas temas de Horácio em língua portuguesa, by Francisco Achcar, to think about poetic topoi that emerge in Arnaldo Antunes’ poems. Reading the poems showed that something old, as a book, from the title to the selection of poems, constitutes a relatively autonomous unit within the author’s work. Based on this, we propose, in an instrumental way, the hypothesis of two subjects: a “spectral” subject, marked by impersonality and the absence of the first person or subjective themes, with effects obtained through experimental-constructivist composition; and a “manifest” subject, which expresses itself through the use of the first person and through openness to the interior space.