Drummond and the literary engagement

Abstract

This essay examines the theme of the social engagement of the artist in the poetic work of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, adopting, as a criterion of analysis, the images produced from the activity of the look. Attached to the body and its sensitive dimension, the metaphors constitute an intentional distance to establish a relationship of responsibility and commitment between the lyrical and the world. To discuss the scope of that commitment, we compared the theories of literary engagement of Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. While Merleau-Ponty defends a form of engagement perceptive and only indirectly committed to social reality, Sartre, to the opposite, understands the literary activity starting from the category of the action, that mobilizes the explicit engagement, correlated to the politician. The poetry of Drummond, when responding to this dual understanding of engagement, satisfies both concepts.