"Imitação da água" was published on João Cabral de Melo Neto's last book, Quaderna (in 1960). The poem was chosen because João Cabral is very careful with his words, using many stylistic techniques to make his verses as expressive as possible. The analysis will contain general aspects that can be found even in Brazilian poems. It has 8 stanzas of 4 verses, and it's already possible to note Cabral's obsession with the number four, that appears frequently, not only in the number of verses, but also in the stanzas that possess the multiplication of the number. Moreover, the poem also contains 7 poetic syllables in each verse. In the first stanza, the speaker starts by describing a woman lying on its side on a bed, being compared to a wave …show more content…
This can be seen through the verb tenses, since they follow this change: (continha/contivesse) are, respectively, the indicative and subjective mode. This stillness feeling is kept for as long as possible. The moment is reiterated in the first three verses of the stanza and repeating the verb "conter" to cement even more the moment. There is a rhyme between (continha/líquidas), rhyming in (contInhA/lÍquidAs). There is also an abundance of the nasal occlusive phonemes /m/ and /n/. This gives the feeling that everything is contained, still, as in itself, about to overflow, but it also gives certain lightness. Also, in "folhas líquidas", the phonemes /l/ and /lh/ can refer to the flow of the liquid. Now in the third stanza, the comparison between the moment the wave stops and an eyelid closes can be made because of the speed at which the instant happens, because both are especially brief. Furthermore, this stanza is full of alliterations of the phoneme /p/, that wish to give the sensation of when a wave stops and breaks, since each time this /p/ is pronounced, it's also necessary to pause the speech, however it's barely perceptible. It's the "sound similarity", and in this case, the /p/ intends to show the hits of the wave every time it is