A Semiotic Study of the Poem “Para um monumento ao antidepressivo”, by Paulo Henriques Britto

Abstract

Poet, prose writer, renowned translator and professor of literature, Paulo Henriques Britto is part of the so-called “contemporary Brazilian literature”. In the poem we have analyzed, entitled “Para um monumento ao antidepressivo”, published in the book Tarde (2007), Britto pays homage to João Cabral de Melo Neto (an important Brazilian poet), referring to the poem “Num monumento à aspirina”, which is in the book A educação pela pedra (1966). Our work aims to analyze Britto’s poem taking the French semiotics point of view. We try to understand how intertextuality is built, since it can be found not only in the titles, but also in the figure of a “portable sun”, associated with medicines in both texts. Britto’s poem is an example of intertextuality that can be called “condensation” (Lopes, 2003, p. 70). We also seek to put in evidence the organization of the expression plan and its relation with the content plan. Despite the substantial growth of semiotic studies of poetry, there are still few of them. Thus, our research is also justified in that it contributes to the expansion of semiotic analysis of poetry.