Arquivo de literature | Page 91 of 111

The Amazing Silence Around Otto Maria Carpeaux

When the monument that constitutes the work of Otto Maria Carpeaux and the rest of Brazilian literary criticism are flanked, it is impossible not to be surprised that there is not a single biographical study worthy of the great intellectual who gave Brazilian critics the only work of universal value that they have. Silence. I think what would happen if Carpeaux, instead of settling in Brazil, had chosen the United States and did, in English, what he did in Portuguese. The smile is automatic. But why Brazil? Why, at the age of forty, break away from his language and dedicate himself to learning and writing in a language unknown until then? And the very difficult, not to say impossible, was erected: the sterile national literary criticism won an immortal colossus as a gift. What did it do with the gift? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

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Drummond’s Discouragement

The poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade said, in his last interview, none of his poems have entered the history of Brazil, leaving of his work only a few “fads” and “idioms”. He was mistaken, and compounds, today, the first bracket of Brazilian poets of all times: it is impossible to have a list of the best poets or an anthology of the best poems that does not include the great mineiro. But the statement, if not extreme modesty or flawed perception, exhibits the discouragement of someone who, dedicating his life to letters, did not even find signs of reward until his last days. Not to mention the technique, Drummond’s work shows a deep understanding of existence, problems common to all humanity, eyes open, attentive, which express their amazement in very strong images. In short: a poet whose work is not restricted to framing clichés in poetic technique—a very rare quality… And, even so, the distinguished Drummond did not see a return after decades of work, and even after garnering great recognition at the national level. The question: where is the problem? This time, my fingers will spare the dear reader’s eyes…

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A Gigantic Oven

Winter is a literary creation… Thirty-seven degrees Celsius. Sleep is an impossibility, as is thinking in serenity when matter spills discomfort. Several of the benefits of low temperature for the arts of the spirit are said. And it could be added: high temperatures repel thought; being in essence great agitation, they represent precisely the opposite of calm that encourages the mind to reflect. Waking up in fatigue, discouragement due to a bad night’s sleep. One interrupts reasoning by thinking about physical discomfort. Worse: to perceive clothes, shoes, everything contributing to an intolerable sensation. The environment naturally muffled, the forehead wet. And nothing wins, nothing interrupts the sensation of inhabiting a gigantic oven that is impossible to turn off…

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Some Say There Is Poetry Without Rhythm…

A musician, obligatorily, needs to understand rhythm to compose good music. For that, he must know, even instinctively, what beat and tempo are. Only then he will be able to differentiate the countless possible frequencies and the effects he can achieve with each one of them in his composition. Some say there is poetry without rhythm. There are, without a doubt, verses of terrible quality. And even if the poet wants to dispense the most important element to differentiate a poetic composition from prose or spoken language, I believe it is impossible to deny how much knowledge of rhythm would add to his arsenal of expressive effects. Well… To understand rhythm, in poetry, the poet must understand metrics and, consequently, the counting of poetic syllables. There is no other way: the poet who does not understand the syllable counting will never be able to understand what quantity is and what relationship the tonic syllables maintain with the non-accentuated ones at regular intervals. Thus, he will never know what rhythm is and will end up composing verses that do not please the ear. I ask: is the poetry that the ear repels good?

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