Tag: literature

This is how this note would begin: “In Os sonetos completos, by Antero de Quental, for the first time I felt before Portuguese compositions that seemed like sprouts of myself.” Incredible! And I feel unfit to criticize them, since doing so, in a strange way, seems to me to be criticizing my own compositions. Why is that? My first impulse is to think: are Antero’s poems commonplace? Except for something from his youth, not at all! How, then, do I feel expressed by countless of his verses? Aesthetically, I think, there is a notable difference between our compositions: the speech, above all, comes out differently. And so? I conclude, after much reflection, that Antero’s torments are mine. Antero’s psychological conflict is identical to the one I experience. Antero’s expression is the corollary of the paths I have walked. And even Antero’s look before existence seems to keep an enormous similarity with mine. Incredible! And to think that Antero, at the end of it all… let’s leave that aside.

Although, essentially, the human tragedy repeats itself over the centuries, the variations in the scenario, the characters, and the plot are striking. It is as if each epoch had a peculiar pair of lenses. That is why the artist, in complying with the fair recommendation to “belong to his time,” must be very careful not to lose sight of the timeless. In the same way, the particularities of a scenario can generate interest and boredom: everything depends on the proportion in which they are balanced with features that will not wear out over the years.

Whenever a man tries to concentrate, something happens to get in his way: this fundamental law of the universe has been tested by me infinite times, and I have always verified its validity. I have analyzed it with more thoroughness than any scientist, and I say without hesitation: it is infallible and has no exceptions. Almost always, the universe sends the human voice as a disturbance, in its most diverse and detestable manifestations. That is why, to me, the greatest elevation of spirit in the history of mankind was that of the —anonymous!—guy who invented this marvel called the acoustic muffler, noise muffler, ear protector, or portable peace—this last name, of course, is how I named it myself. Designed to protect workers who are subjected to noise that can make them deaf, this magnificent invention symbolizes man spitting in his hand and nailing it to the face of the universe. It is the greatest human creation of all time! May this genius, this saint, this enlightened man that history has forgotten be blessed for all eternity!

Metrics and, especially, rhythmic regularity deliver an effect that is difficult to match through other expressive resources in poetry. They both seem to stroke and fulfill the demands of the brain as it concentrates on unraveling the meaning of the words and interpreting the syntactical variations of the verses. In regular poetry, small rhythmic variations, drawing attention to themselves, sometimes succeed in emphasizing words and enhancing the expressiveness of some passages in the poem; however, when the rhythmic pattern is ostensibly broken, the disturbance caused seems to divert the mind’s attention from what it should concentrate on—the effect, in short, is aesthetically unpleasant. The rhythm, once grasped, generates an expectation for its continuity—and it is difficult to satisfy the brain by denying what it seems to ask.