Herberto Helder and the Dionysian Passion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53930/27892182.dialogos.8.133Keywords:
Friedrich Nietzsche, Herberto Helder, The birth of tragedy, Dionysus, NihilismAbstract
“What is the Dionysian element?”, asks Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy. What is, and if it is possible, “to die Greekly”, inquires Herberto Helder, in his poem “I read somewhere that the ancient Greeks did not write obituaries”, in A faca não corta o fogo. The present essay has, therefore, the objective of relating these two questions, realizing Helder’s Dionysian features by reading the poem. In what way does the poet transmute his feet into satyr hooves and become a Dionysian initiate? It seems that the secret of this metamorphosis lies in the passion. But “what kind of passion?”, the poet further asks. Considering that the Dionysiac is to passionately accept life and the absurdity of existence, I will hazard, then, that the possibility of dying in a Greek way is to live in a Greek way and the necessary passion for this is found in Dionysus, as a symbol and philosophical principle.
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