Luciano Duarte

Literature would be dead if its artists were required to be as rigorous as writers in other fields. Coherence, or rather the thought of hypothetical coherence, is paralyzing, it is something that takes away possibilities. The artist must be free to move forward despite possible consequences, focusing only on bringing life to the creation. It does not matter about his previous works, or what he might think of what he is now writing: the work has to be independent, and condense in itself the reasons for its conception.

We grow much more when we nurture respect, appreciation and affection for the works bequeathed by the authors of the past, in the face of the opposite impulse to undervalue or reject them. But perhaps we need to wait for time to amplify the first feeling, as greater experience provides more points of contact, thus increasing understanding and empathy. A good age is one that teaches complacency, and complacency, more than anyone else, benefits the one who possesses it.

Perhaps the most common mistake in literary criticism is to take historical importance as a qualitative criterion for an author. Nothing could be further from the truth. The guy who publishes a sonnet, if he gets shot, is already the murdered poet. And that could be followed by pages and pages that give a misleading impression of greatness. Meanwhile, there’s the other, obscure, with no contacts, about whom little is known, whose biography may not be brilliant, nor his work new, unexplored by critics, without influence, but who made the best of his vocation a reality, with all his spirit and full sincerity.