Junqueira Freire and the contradictions of heroism

Abstract

In this study, Junqueira Freire’s poetry is interpreted in view of the heroic attitude that is inherent to it. Heroism, here, means laceration: the heroic character, which the poet discovers in his religious vocation, is akin to the heroic character that shows itself in the poetic inspiration. Inclined, on one hand, to religious life and, on the other, rejecting such vocation in name of another, neither more sincere or legitimate than the former – which should take the place of it and question its meaning –, but in conflict with it, the poet finds himself exposed to the contingencies of a higher contradiction, which announces and questions the meaning of any vocation. In this double trend, the problem of vocation turns out to be a problem of poetry, which cannot be seen from outside the instance in which literature and religion meet each other.