LINGUOPOETIC SEMANTICS OF BUTTERFLY IMAGE IN PORTUGUESE LYRICS OF 17th-20th CENTURIES
Abstract
https://doi.org/10.18522/1995-0640-2025-2-36-48
The purpose of the study is to identify the variety of semantic realizations and the gradual complication of the butterfly image in the poetry of the most representative Portuguese writers of the 17th-20th centuries. Among them are Almeida Garrett, Cesario Verde, Florbela Espanca, Fernando Pessoa and other original representatives of Baroque, Romanticism, Symbolism and Modernism. In Portuguese poetry of the 17th-18th centuries (Jerónimo Bahia, Manuel du Bocage) the image of a butterfly appears as the emblem of a young man in love and acts as part of a bucolic landscape – the background for pastoral subjects. Later, the butterfly acts as an allegory of lightness and freedom, feelings of nostalgia and longing (saudade); in addition, it is uniquely associated with the soul: not peaceful, but anxious, confused, crazy and longing. The modernist F. Pessoa interprets the butterfly as a manifestation of two worlds – the real and the inner, intimate. In the twentieth century, psychological motives become a priority, however, traditional meanings remain, undergoing reinterpretation. As a result of the research, the linguopoetic specificity of the butterfly image is determined, which is realized in a variety of symbolic meanings and associative connections. The authors conclude that its semantic development is conditioned by two opposing trends: continuity and innovation.
Key words: Portuguese poetry, linguistic and poetic semantics, context, borboleta / butterfly, metaphor, symbolism, image
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Copyright (c) 2025 Varvara A. Makhortova, Marina V. Kutyeva
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