From the floor of sertão to the heart of the poet: the piauiense Identity in the poetry of “lira sertaneja” by Hermínio Castelo Branco

Abstract

Expressed by the idea and feeling of belonging to a group or place, the identity is formulated through diff erent forms of representation or symbols, being able to relate to history, values, language, folklore and places. Th e relation with the place can be constituted as a factor of construction of the identity, because the references with the land where one is born, one inherits values and constructs memories, can define the essence of a human group. Among the forms of representation of this symbolism of identity, literature allows to record stories told about places, memories that connect present and past and constructed images. One of the elements of construction of the identity of the people of the northeast Brazilian region, is in the importance given to the geographic space of the sertão. In the literature of Piauí it is identified in the poetry of Hermínio Castelo Branco, in three of his poems of the work “Lira Sertaneja”, titled “Em Viagem ao Amazonas”, “À Margem do Rio Negro” and “Canto do Desterrado”, a strong connotation of its intrinsic relation with Piauí, giving an identity to his land and through it his desire that the scenarios he loved, both human and geographic should remain unchanged, object of study of this article.