Popular song and the literary canon review

Abstract

To sing a poem is to find the embryonic intonation of words; to reactivate the primary use of language; and reaffirm that the sung word is prior to the written word. The work of transforming the autotelic structure of written poetry into the heterothelic song requires the interart knowledge of the songwriter. How the twenty/twenty-first century songwriters are reading poems from earlier centuries and rethinking the literary canon? This paper seeks to understand the issue through the interpretation of the partnership between Gregório de Matos and Jards Macalé; the partnership between Sousândrade and Caetano Veloso; the partnership between Maria Firmina dos Reis and Socorro Lira; and the partnership between Oswald de Andrade and Murilo Mendes and Juliana Perdigão.