Metalanguage in Mário Faustino’s work: an analysis of the construction of the poetic self

Abstract

This article analyzes metalanguage in the work of Mário Faustino as a structuring category of the poetic self and as a critical operation that articulates language, consciousness, and modernity. The general objective of the study was to investigate how metalanguage functions as an organizing principle in Faustino’s lyricism, not merely as a formal device, but as a philosophical and self-reflective expression of modern poetry. The methodology was based on the analysis of critical texts, essays, and poems by the author, with emphasis on the Poesia-Experiência project, identifying throughout the research how Faustino merges the roles of poet, critic, translator, and thinker into a single authorial gesture. The results indicate that metalanguage in Faustino is not limited to self-reference, but assumes an ontological, aesthetic, and ethical dimension, insofar as the author transforms the poem into a field of experience and symbolic struggle. However, it also becomes evident that this metapoetic operation may give rise to an excessively self-referential language which, by emphasizing formal rigor and intellectual density, distances itself from sensorial experience and interpretative plurality. Furthermore, the study problematizes the communicative scope of Faustino's work, demonstrating that the figure of the poet-critic, although innovative, can impose a disciplinary and normative aesthetic that challenges the dialogic openness of poetic language. It is concluded that metalanguage, in Faustino, operates both as an instrument of existential structuring and as a potential source of formalist enclosure.