“A dama branca”, myth and poetry in As metamorfoses, by Murilo Mendes

Abstract

In this text we intend to read the poem “A dama branca”, by As Metamorfoses (1938-1941), by Murilo Mendes. The poetic procedure used by the poet from Minas Gerais to write the poem is carried out by the confection of the image elaborated by the montage/collage of disparate elements, with the aim of altering the representation of the sensible world and revealing a new world, unknowable to the mimetic representation of reality. To do this, the poet disarticulates the elements of the objective world and rearranges them in a new, freer and more poetic way. In addition to this conception of poetic making, the close relationship that Murilian poetics establishes as a myth, in the sense that, in one of its strong marks, its creation seeks a kind of “deep memory” of culture, bringing to the present an exemplary mythical past. For this, the poet will seek the help of the muses and divine grace to build his poem. It is through memory that the poet manages to overcome the limits determined by ordinary and material space-temporality and go beyond the sensitive world.