ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, poet Paulo Leminski wrote a few essays expressing his concern about the depletion of natural resources, the imminent environmental catastrophe, the possible nuclear hecatomb and the crisis of the dominant ways of life in the modern Western world. Leminski was interested in investigating how literature participated in this historical moment of scarcity. Seeking to ascertain the role of art in this crisis, he used a series of conceptual and historical characters that, in the name of ascesis, fight against the culture of affluence, activism and progressist teleology that characterized Brazilian society in the 1970s and their artistic correlates: both in their experimental and ideological versions. This article seeks to surmise what kind of experience of time is involved in Leminski’s poetic asceticism.
Keywords
Paulo Leminski; literature; time; environmental catastrophe