Innovating tradition: The poetry of Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen and German expressionist poetry

Can poetry be considered a truly modern weapon to support actual historical dynamics? Has modern poetry its form strategies to build a new and modern reader and challenge them to be aware of their own and its singularity? Are there any similarities between Sophia and the literary theory of German expressionist poetry? Does silence have anything to do with the modern poetic way of expressing true feelings regarding any reader’s real-life features? These are some of the questions this paper intends to explore while discussing and reflecting throughout its four sections: 1. Way of seeing; 2. Way of being; 3. Way of doing; 4. Way of going. I intend to show how both Sophia’s and the poetry of the German expressionists opened the way to literary innovation.