Ernst Jandl, linguist poet: study and translation of four poems

Abstract

This article intends to analyze, making use of devices from the linguistic sciences and from Saussurean semiology, four compositions by the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl (1925-2000), one of the precursors of Concrete Poetry on Post-Modernism. Richly influenced by the Modern vanguards, such as Dadaism and Sound Poetry, Jandl presents a form of poetry capable of leading us to profound insights on specific aspects of verbal languages in practically all its levels (i.e. phonological, morphological, semantic and syntax, etc.), moreover on the German language, which he used for composing his works. Thus, it is also an objective of this study to expand the reading possibilities and the reach of these insights from the reunion of the fields of linguistics and literary criticism, whose reconciliation was more than recommended by the linguist Roman Jakobson. At the end of each section, a translation in Portuguese for each poem will be proposed, using the lexical and prosodic adaptation of the same criteria which guided the analysis hereby conducted. I aim, at last, with these translations, to make explicit the empirical applicability of semiotic tools on poetry studies, as well as contributing indirectly to the thesis of Sign Arbitrariness, as proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure.