The VisualMaterial of "Cidade-City-Cité"

Abstract

The poem "Cidade / City / Cité" by Augusto de Campos, published in 1963, has been subject to various interpretations. It is evidently pioneering in its material exploration and demonstrates the intimate relationship between concrete poetry and new technologies: information technology and means of communication, which combine with traditional printed media, in areas which are non-traditional in poetry. The poem comes alive through its combination of various radicals with the endings "cidade", "city" and "cité", combining the qualities of urban life in a trilingual poem which expands and changes in each reading and recreation, acting beyond literary dimensions, freeing language from syntax, bringing the reader closer to the poet Augusto de Campos and completing the poem as an art form (CAGE, 1974, p.15).

By analysing the various metamorphoses of the poem, this article aims to analyse the signification vehicles used in each version and how these preserve the combinatory nature of the poem and its meaning. "Cidade / City / Cité" is a poem undergoing metamorphosis, as are the urban spaces, which adapt to new times in a metareferential manner, accompanied by and taking advantage of the media of each period to take poetry to new dimensions.