Tag: literature

There is something really funny about Bocage’s burlesque verses that, if read in small amounts, provoke sincere laughter. However, the fun boils down to this. They are verses that cannot be read in piles without causing boredom. This is the way obscenity is: it only causes effect as long as it astonishes; once the astonishment disappears, it can only generate boredom and aversion.

It seems easy to note that Bandeira’s fundamental criticism, in Os sapos, was directed at the futility of the cultivators of form. He expressed his repulsion for useless aesthetic discussions and frivolous, though refined poetry. The curious thing is that this does not seem to have been noticed by those who, inspired by the poem, founded a new aesthetic, which developed into an even more passionate cult of form. But the worst thing is not this; the worst thing is to see that the new aesthetic has plunged itself into banalities not like the Parnassian ones, but infinitely worse, if not obscene and repulsive, into creations that do nothing but manifest the turpitude of the mind that created them. It is an aesthetic present most often in poems that combine ignorance with artistic inability and lowliness of spirit. On second thought, what a feat!

There! Now I cannot get rid of the memory of the fellow dancing with a harp under the applause of the audience. Man should be forbidden the possibility of collective demonstration. No doubt such a measure would bury at least half the world’s problems. Something inexplicable happens when man mixes—and annuls—himself in a collectivity. A collectivity, even if formed by intelligent men, is always stupid. This has already been noted, I do not know whether by Nelson, O’Neill or Wilde. Perhaps by Ibsen, and more likely by all four. Man, in a group, should only act as in orchestras where applause is forbidden and the verb is worth expulsion.