Tag: literature

It is interesting to notice that two of the three fundamental elements of symbolism according to Valéry’s definition —stérilité, préciosité— sum up with great precision the work of Augusto dos Anjos. True, unlike Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Baudelaire, Augustos dos Anjos’ stérilité is the result of a premature death, and not of a voluntary act. In any case, it is admissible: sterility brought potency, either in the French or in Augusto—the latter, owner of perhaps the strongest images ever registered in Portuguese verse.

I have thought a lot, a lot about Nelson Rodrigues, the first and perhaps most important of my masters. The absence of retirement, the illnesses, the censures, the tragedies… all of this molding a conception of the world. The sad and thoughtful look at the corrupted nature of man. The unbelievable succession of misfortunes, the aging process accompanied by continuous breakups, the courage to walk towards death. And yet, the good humor, the immortal irony, and the ability to see light where there seems to be none.

Three months without composing a single, solitary verse. My mind boiling like never before. As an excuse, the other jobs and the stupid imperative of necessity. On more than one occasion, the feeling of a near explosion, the call of the mind to record in art the powerful and terrible judgment, the cry in verse form. And, alas, the silence, the rational inaction to let the impulse slow down. Indeed, it does slow down—and fate has another chance. In vain, however, for it will surely return…

First contact with the work of Paul Valéry. The style is striking, in verse and prose. Scouring his biography, I find the aggression: his Cahiers sums up to two hundred and fifty-seven volumes in which, day after day, for fifty-one years, Valéry built his monument of thirty thousand pages. Thirty thousand pages! Carpeaux’s words, “The lofty Paul Valéry is one of the most brilliant prose writers of the French language.” — “There are those who prefer Valéry’s prose to his poetry. There are those who consider Valéry a greater artist than poet. As a wit in prose and as an artist in verse, there is no one in this century who can compare to him.” Words that make us think…