Ant and Cicada in Portuguese Lyrics: Dynamic of Associative Semantics

Starting from the traditional classical literature meanings of an ant and a cicada, this paper aims to explore the transformations of their associative (secondary) semantics in the space of a poetic text. We put forward a hypothesis about the significant dynamic variability of these entomonyms’ metaphoric imagery. Thanks to the works of Aesop and Jean de La Fontaine, the analyzed images bear a significant fable imprint in their semantic register. Although in Portuguese linguoculture the ant is perceived mostly positively and is interpreted as a tireless worker, a diligent host and even a visionary, its attractiveness has been somewhat overshadowed by poetic associations with excessive practicality, greed, callousness and everyday dullness. The image of cicada also did not remain unchanged in connotative-semantic terms. Its role as an irresponsible lazy woman from the fable was transformed into an allegory of a creative personality who puts self-expression above all. However, both the ant and the cicada in a number of poetic contexts distance themselves from the allegorical dual trajectory outlined by Aesop: the ant is depicted as part of a huge but fussy collective (anthill), and the cicada is associated in Portuguese lyrics with both an inspired thirst for creativity and the opposite passion - aggressiveness. Descriptive and analytical methods of comparative, component, interpretative and conceptual-inference analysis were used to identify such semantic features. The study could be developed by fixation and comparison of the author’s figurative meanings, choosing a group of the most “active” entomonyms in poetry of unrelated languages.