Os vários cantos das Américas: reivindicação de voz na poesia de Langston Hughes e Lolly Aires

Abstract

Literature as a discourse that raises from the social fabric carries a considerable representational index on the reality from which it arises. Therefore, the literary textuality, as a constant (re)construction of meanings, semanticizes historical fractures that ravage societies. This is the idea we chase in this essay analyzing the relations among three poems: “I hear America singing”, by Walt Whitman, “I, too”, by Langston Hughes, and “Eu também canto a América”, de Lolly Aires. The two first are literary productions from the United States and the third one from Brazil; thereby, in the analytical exercise, we aim at observing, in the intertextual relation accomplished, the voice and social participation claiming in the poetry by Langston Hughes and Lolly Aires. These end up representing neglected identities in American continent since they highlight the exclusion motivated by race and gender vectors, mainly. Thus, we get close to inter-American comparativism (FIGUEIREDO, 2005; BERND, 2011), in order to bring the literary production closer in the horizon of the social criticism they achieve.