It is interesting to notice that two of the three fundamental elements of symbolism according to Valéry’s definition —stérilité, préciosité— sum up with great precision the work of Augusto dos Anjos. True, unlike Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Baudelaire, Augustos dos Anjos’ stérilité is the result of a premature death, and not of a voluntary act. In any case, it is admissible: sterility brought potency, either in the French or in Augusto—the latter, owner of perhaps the strongest images ever registered in Portuguese verse.
Symbolists and Augusto dos Anjos
