Álvaro de Campos and his futuristic imaginary

mythology of the consumer society

Abstract

Taking as a method the mythodology proposed by Durand (1982), the article performs the myth-criticism and myth-analysis of the futurist imaginary in the poem "Ao volante do Chevrolet pela Estrada de Sintra" by Álvaro de Campos (Pessoa, 1993). The objective aims to demonstrate the actuality of its poetics in the 21st century when technology continues to boost the signs of the road and travel as predictions of human transformations caused by urbanization and speed that come from the world of machines. Among the avant-gardes of the early 20th century, futurism heralds the birth of the consumer society, taking the automobile as a symbol, so the poetics of Fernando Pessoa represents its adjustment with the emerging industry of advertising, branding, and marketing as a way of enchanting people and societies for the automobile experience. The methodology proposed by Durand (1989) anthropologically structures the interpretation of the modernist feeling in the face of historical transformations that would alter the relationship of human beings with nature, objects, and culture. The comparison among the poetics of this heteronomy of Fernando Pessoa's, his literary intertextualities, and the movement led by Marinetti (1909) in the visual arts demonstrate the futurists' sharpness in imagining the reality of urban centers in the next century.