Luciano Duarte | Literature and philosophy

Victor Hugo’s Lesson

For three months now, dedicating myself to closing a small volume of poems, fighting against the discouraging sensation of never considering a single sonnet finished, it is with amazement that I think of the more than 150 thousand verses that Victor Hugo finished in just one life. Once, I read someone saying that such productivity compromised the quality of these verses. Reasoning too obvious and that does not resist an accurate examination. To me, the scandalous in Victor Hugo is the discipline worthy of the greatest name in French literature. Immense merit, and quite instructive…

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Conviviality Is a Pact of Falsehood

I am faced with the problem, I understand it the same as always. I come back to myself. Two years ago, I launched the only TV series I ever produced. Two years ago, a character of mine said:

“Conviviality is a pact of falsehood. A minimum dose of sincerity throws coexistence into space. One can be an idiot or a cynic, there is no third option.”

And he heard the friend’s answer:

“Conviviality is putting on the clothes and leaving the money on the bed.”

Why always the same question?…

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When I Open a Book, I Do Not Sign a Contract

I remember the day I made this magnificent discovery: when I open a book, I do not sign a contract committing myself to read it until the end. Soon the idea shone, I transferred, smiling, the volume of my hands to the shelf. Since then, I have exercised my right more and more often. The works vary, so do the reasons: sometimes contempt speaks; for others, my inaptitude cries out. And, using this very useful technique of pressing the cover against the back of the book with my hands, I have learned that some works require the moment, require adequate preparation (especially in terms of mastery of the language) to prove themselves useful or enjoyable. Thus, closing a book can save time, avoid unnecessary wear and tear and prevent a rewarding future experience from being burned by an unjustified rush.

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ABC of Reading, by Ezra Pound

I read ABC of Reading, by Ezra Pound and I find, between a virtuous exhibition and lucid passages from a great intellectual, the obvious apparently ignored:

Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music.

What to say? The search for originality and new means of expression in literature has often given way to a disfigurement of literary art itself or, in other words, a worse aesthetic. Much as a result of an obsessive vision in the establishment of laws, the guidelines, the tools capable of endowing literary construction with an artistic character fell into contempt, became “antiques”. The problem, however, only makes one flee from the essential: why the arc of action in dramaturgy? Why metrics in poetry? Because they are instruments that, if used with dexterity, differentiate literary art from the spoken discourse, making it aesthetically superior; they are instruments capable of giving unity to artistic construction, capable of producing interesting expressive effects. The artist who does not know them will not be able to establish qualitative criteria for his art, that is, he will not be able to improve it, even to evaluate its aesthetic quality, handling something that he ignores the substance. Obviousness, obviousness, while extremely necessary.

The bad draughtsman is bad because he does not perceive space and spatial relations, and cannot therefore deal with them.

The writer of bad verse is a bore because he does not perceive time and time relations, and cannot therefore delimit them in an interesting manner, by means· of longer and shorter, heavier and lighter syllables, and the varying qualities of sound inseparable from the words of his speech.

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