Tag: literature

It is amazing how I have been able to see Antero through his verses. I read a biography of him, and a myriad of facts not described come to me as obvious—facts that I end up confirming with the help of other biographers. Thus, I understand him completely and perfectly, from his intimate torments to his behavior; and if an Eça tells him of a “fleeting”, though “consoling” coexistence, I already know the reasons, I already deduce the mystery that hides this apparently contradictory posture. I know how Antero felt, and I know how heavy burden he carried that he could not talk about. It is touching to see him described by Eça, to see how he imposed an overwhelming victory over his inner conflicts through his personality. And finally…

According to Schopenhauer, out of d’Alembert’s pen came this beautiful reflection on the “temple of literary glory”:

L’intérieur du temple n’est habité que par des morts qui n’y étaient pas de leur vivant, et par quelques vivants que l’on met à la porte, pour la plupart, dès qu’ils sont morts.

What a thing! And worse is to note the very rare exceptions to this rule. The most obvious conclusion is that of Cioran, Valéry, Volaire, that success is a true disgrace for the artist. But when we inquire into the reason for such a deduction, we are led to admit that there is nothing more beneficial, if not essential to the artist than a mixture of failure and solitude. That isolation is productive is easily understandable; but failure? spending one’s life neglected, if not repudiated? And note that this is what happened in the overwhelming majority of cases to those who eternalized themselves in d’Alembert’s temple.

When we notice examples as common as Augusto dos Anjos’, that is, examples of a mind that sprouts luminous and independent, seeming to ignore, if not pretermit what is considered fundamental, and we notice reactions that usually accompany this phenomenon, we are inclined to conclude that it is the stones that define an artist’s value. It is curious how individuality always, always seems to demand detachment. Individuality that can also be called essence or identity. And even the artists who, at a given moment, give in to these joint idealizations, to this applause-generating conformity, have to face a moment, perhaps the moment, when they are as if forced to separate themselves from everyone else and move forward alone, despite what others may think or say. Such reflections only lead us to wonder whether these literary associations serve any purpose other than to show us which are the sheep and which are the valuable artists.

If the artist limits himself, as many have said, to giving new forms to old ideas, it must be concluded that he individualizes himself in the expression. There is some truth in the assertion of many writers that a narrative boils down to the action arc, with everything else being secondary. However, it should be noted that the plot gives us a mostly vague view of the artist, who cannot be summarized in a diagram. To see him, to know him, to identify him, we need to see how he expresses himself, not what is being expressed. We can see this even in an emblematic example like Dostoevsky, whose works have such well-defined dramatic arcs that Nabokov called him a playwright. Dostoevsky reveals himself, rather, in the long, troubled, intense and tumultuous periods. There is no need to go on.