Analysis of “Pós-tudo”: Metalanguage in Concrete Poetry

Abstract

The poem “Pós-tudo”, by Augusto de Campos, is analyzed from the perspective of Zilberberg’s tensive semiotics, especially its developments in Razão e poética do sentido, in which the author deals with the recognition of a fiduciary space, whose content offers a course of the individual’s evaluative (poetic) universe, thus showing his/her conditions, assumptions and developments. This poem is a landmark in the concrete poet’s work, since besides maintaining the rigor of the 50’s vanguard it adds colors and variety of fonts and operates the explicit resurgence of a poetic voice which promotes an evaluative reflection about Campos’s own work, as carrier of Brazilian avant-garde’s ideals. Even many years after the end of the concrete movement, which produced numerous controversies, this poem, also controversial, has been given limited discussion, due to the lack of studies focusing on it. The application of Zilberberg’s model to the poem generates an interesting reading, because the evaluative universe is thematized and structured by the chapter “Recognition of the Fiduciary Space” (Zilberberg, 2006b). Thus, the analytic gap coupled with the study of the poem based on the French semiotician’s theoretical approach have led to the production of this article, which aims at producing a possible reading of “Pós-tudo”, whose characteristic metalanguage invites us to reflect on (post) modernity.