Laforgue and Drummond: irony and the gauche way in Les complaintes and Alguma poesia

Abstract

Jules Laforgue (1860 – 1887) was considered an author of the literary Modernism whose writings touch two important movements: Decadentism and Symbolism. Decadentism, prior to Symbolism, is characterized by a more pessimistic compositional tone, while Symbolism, according to Edmund Wilson, is composed of two distinct tendencies, the “serious-esthetic” and the “colloquial-ironic”. The latter, intended not only for the elected ones, has been associated to Jules Laforgue, who chooses oralityrelated and everyday subjects as well as irony. Like Jules Laforgue, the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1986), affiliated to Modernism, uses in his writing the resources of this movement by mocking the existing literary models and creating a new way to make poetry. Therefore, he embraces the free verse, the absence of rhymes, the humor, and everyday subjects to show the many faces of the maladjusted self, the gauche in the world. Both poets adopted, in Les Complaintes and Alguma Poesia, a notable resource: the irony.