Tag: literature

The evolution of Manuel Bandeira’s poetry describes, much more than an aesthetic rebellion, a search for authenticity, a progressive stripping away of adornment in order to focus on the fundamental. It is a poetry that sought more to rid itself of artificialities than to invent new ones; a poetry that is intimate, personal, and sincere, original more for the expression of an individuality than for the form—the form, which Bandeira himself expressly called secondary and which seems, to some, to constitute the essence of his poetic creation. That is why Bandeira is not imitated: to do so, one would have to be him; an honor that fortunately will not be bestowed on anyone.

There seems to be something wrong, counterproductive and absurd in these academic analyses of poems, which dissect the verses to the point of highlighting the expressive effect of each of the letters that make up its words. The contradiction is obvious when we see the result: endless paragraphs that seem to hide the essence of the verses rather than elucidate it. It is curious: these academics see alliteration, assonance before the very meaning of the words they read. There is no denying that such expressive resources sometimes reinforce an idea; but that is what they do: reinforce, and are merely auxiliary. It is even ridiculous to want to see the analyst as having expressive intent in sibilants when the author has limited himself to using plural words, not to mention worse examples. What is this? Finally, we are left with the feeling that there is an attempt to idealize the futile to the detriment of the essential.

As far as rhythm is concerned, the poem seems to lack a support, an expected tonicity in specific syllables, so that there is a sense of harmony and that the planned breaks can stand out. If the rhythmic pattern varies with each verse, there is no pattern and therefore no rhythmic base on which the verses rest. Unless one avowedly makes poetry by stripping it of musicality, the much-criticized regularity seems a necessary condition for poems that are meant to be good.

Language offers everyone identical possibilities. It is nothing more than a huge set of signs to be used as a vehicle for the expression of ideas, facts, feelings. In a work of art, therefore, the use of language, the style, will be more authentic the more it individualizes the expression of what it intends to express, that is, the more the uniqueness of the artist is exposed through the universal set of signs. Well then. It seems that based on this—correct—reasoning, everything has been legitimized in letters and, due to another reasoning that often accompanies it—that, in art, the important thing is to be “original”—true aberrations have been considered marvelous. Faced with such works, one gets the feeling that there is something wrong, that something so simplistic cannot be good, just because it is different. And then it seems fair to note that true mastery, in art, makes the complex appear simple—and not the other way around…