Chapter XV: Part II: Representative Personalities (6)

There can be no question as to the dynamic personality of this young man. There can be little question as to the wholesome influence he is wielding. Thus far, however, he is weakest when in his rôle as short-story writer--with the important exceptions we have noted--and strongest as a polemical critic. His personal gifts seem destined to make of him a propagandist of the ironical, satirical sort, with a marked inclination for caricature. One may safely hazard the opinion that he has not yet, in the creative sense--that of transforming reality, through imagination, into artistic life--found himself fully. He is much more than a promise; it is only that his fulfilment is not yet clearly defined.[2]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Another “Washington of the South,” according to some Spanish Americans, is Marshal Sucre Bolívar’s powerful associate. Bolívar himself has been compared to Washington, perhaps most illuminatingly by the notable Equatorian, Juan Montalvo, in his _Siete Tratados_.

[2] Some time after writing the article of which the above is an amplification, I received from Senhor Lobato a letter which is of sufficient importance to contemporary strivings in Brazil, and to the life and purpose of Lobato himself, to merit partial translation. I give the salient passages herewith:

“I was born on the 18th April, 1883, in Taubate, State of São Paulo, the son of parents who owned a coffee estate. I initiated my studies in that city and proceeded later to São Paulo, where I entered the department of Law, being graduated, like everybody else, as a Bachelor of Laws. Fond of literature, I read a great deal in my youth; my favourite authors were Kipling, Maupassant, Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Balzac, Wells, Dickens, Camillo Castello Branco, Eça de Queiroz and Machado de Assis … but I never let myself be dominated by any one. I like to see with my own eyes, smell with my own nose. All my work reveals this personal impression, almost always cruel, for, in my opinion, we are the remnant of a race approaching elimination. Brazil will be something in the future, but the man of today, the Luso-Africano-Indio will pass out of existence, absorbed and eliminated by other, stronger races … just as the primitive aborigine passed. Even as the Portuguese caused the disappearance of the Indian, so will the new races cause the disappearance of the hybrid Portuguese, whose rôle in Brazilian civilization is already fulfilled, having consisted of the vast labour of clearing the land by the destruction of the forests. The language will remain, gradually more and more modified by the influence of the new milieu, so different from the Lusitanian milieu.

“Brazil is an ailing country.” (In his pamphlet _Problema Vital_, Lobato studies this problem, indicating that man will be victorious over the tropical zone through the new arms of hygiene. The pamphlet caused a turmoil throughout Brazil, and sides were at once formed, the one considering Lobato a defamer of the nation, the other seeing in it an act of sanative patriotism. As a result, a national program of sanitation was inaugurated. This realism of approach, so characteristic of Lobato, made of his figure Jéca Tatú a national symbol that has in many minds replaced the idealized image of _Pery_, from Alencar’s _Guarany_. _Jéca_ thus stands for the most recent critical reaction against national romanticism.)

“I recognize now that I was cruel, but it was the only way of stirring opinion in that huge whale of most rudimentary nervous system which is my poor Brazil. I am not properly a literary man. I take no pleasure in writing, nor do I attach the slightest importance to what is called literary glory and similar follies. I am a particle of extremely sensitive conscience that adopted the literary form,--fiction, the conte, satire,--as the only means of being heard and heeded. I achieved my aim and today I devote myself to the publishing business, where I find a solid means of sustaining the great idea that in order to cure an ailing person he must first be convinced that he is, in fact, a sick man.”

Here, as elsewhere, Lobato’s theory is harsher than his practice. He is, of course, a literary man and has achieved a distinctive style; but he knows, as his letter hints, that his social strength is his literary weakness.

SELECTIVE CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

As the purpose of this book is largely introductory, the works listed below have been chosen carefully as a miniature critical library for the student. Numerous other volumes are mentioned in the footnotes of the text. I have not considered it necessary to include here a number of works that possess importance chiefly for the specialist.

FERDINAND DENIS. _Resumé de l’histoire littéraire du Portugal, suivi du Resumé de l’histoire littéraire du Brésil._ Paris, 1826.

The chapters upon Brazilian letters occupy pages 513 to 601 of this 16mo book. The French cleric, with a style inclining toward eloquence, makes highly pleasant reading, and the century that followed upon his work has borne out more than one of his expectations. He realized, thus early, the effect of the racial blend upon the imaginative output, indicating the African for ardour, the Portuguese for chivalry, the Indian native for dreaminess. As a resident upon the spot, he noted the several-month droughts which Buckle, much to Romero’s indignation, later failed to take into account. “America,” wrote Denis, “sparkling with youth, ought to think thoughts as new and energetic as itself; our literary glory cannot always illumine it with a light that grows dim on crossing the seas, and which should vanish completely before the primitive inspiration of a nation vibrant with energy.” Denis, in his prophetic strain, even predicted that America would some day visit Europe as Europe today visits Egypt, to witness the scenes of a departed civilization. In general, he favours a distinctive, national note. He is cursorily informative rather than critical, and susceptible to few aesthetic values.

FERDINAND WOLF. _Le Brésil Littéraire. Histoire de la littérature brésilienne suivie d’un choix de morceaux tires des meilleurs auteurs b(r)ésiliens._ Berlin, 1863.

The quarto volume is dedicated to the Emperor of Brazil. Wolf, of course, was a German; the book was translated into French at the publisher’s request, in order to reach a larger audience. Its author regarded it as “the first and only one to appear in Europe on the subject.” Since Denis’s treatment forms a sort of appendix to his Portuguese section, Wolf’s statement, understood as referring to an independent volume upon Brazil, may be allowed to pass. The book is chiefly one of facts and analyses of works. Of criticism in the higher sense there is little, and what there is, is of the conventional sort. There is a moral, anti-French outlook; a Teutonic preoccupation with data; no glimmer of aesthetic criticism. Wolf’s style is far from the amenable style of Denis.

FRANCISCO ADOLPHO DE VARNHAGEN. _Florilegio da Poesia Brasileira._ (Vols. I and II, Lisbon, 1850. Vol. III, Madrid, 1853.)

It is the _Introduction_ preceding the first volume of these noted selections, together with the prefatory notes to the selections themselves, that virtually begins the writing of Brazilian literary history. Without this work Ferdinand Wolf could not have written his _Le Brésil Littéraire_. All later investigators and critics have really built upon Varnhagen’s foundations, tearing a stone away here and there and substituting another, but leaving the structure fundamentally the same.

SYLVIO ROMERO. _Historia da Litteratura Brasileira. 2a edição, melhorada pelo auctor._ Rio Vol. I, 1902, Vol. II, 1903.

Romero is one of the most picturesque literary figures of the nineteenth century. He was a born fighter, with all the traits of the ardent polemist. Throughout a lifetime that was rife with self-contradiction, self-repetition, and self-glorification, he fought for Brazilian independence in the literary, scientific and political fields. He was by no means blind to esthetic beauty, but he insisted overmuch upon the national element and was easily lost in fogs of irrelevancy. He was a great admirer of German methods, and--justly, to my way of thinking--a believer in Anglo-German culture as a complement to Latin. As his life sought to cover almost every field of intellectual activity, so does his History of Brazilian Literature, which was left incompleted, seek to cover altogether too much ground. His book might more properly have been named a history of Brazilian culture. Such, indeed, was his conception of literature, which to him, as he states in his very first chapter, possessed “the amplitude given to it by the critics and historians of Germany. It comprises all the manifestations of a people’s intelligence:--politics, economics, art, popular creations, sciences … and not, as was wont to be supposed, in Brazil, only those entitled _belles lettres_, which finally came to mean almost exclusively _poetry_!…” A knowledge of this important work--important despite the list of objections that might be raised against it--is indispensable to the student.

SYLVIO ROMERO and JOAO RIBEIRO. _Compendia da Literatura Brasileira._ 2a edição refundida. Rio, 1909.

A useful compendium and condensation. The authors here consider art “a chapter of sociology,” laying down a belief in the “consciousness of the identity of human destinies,” which is, “in our opinion, the basis of all sociology and morality.”

JOSÉ VERISSIMO. _Estudos de Literatura Brazileira._ Six series, published at Rio de Janeiro and Paris, between 1901 and 1910. These largely formed the basis for his _Historia da Literatura Brazileira_, Rio, 1916.

Verissimo, in my opinion, is the leading critic of letters Brazil has thus far produced, and one of the country’s greatest minds. His whole life was a beautiful attitude,--a serene, usually unruffled spirit open to anything that proceeded from creative sincerity. He is, as I have tried to show in the text, the spiritual opposite of Romero. If the student has time only for a limited reading of Brazilian criticism, he should approach Verissimo before he goes any farther. Verissimo had learned, or perhaps had been born with, the secret that beauty owed allegiance to no flag; he was not bogged, as was Romero so often, by extraneous loyalties; he erected no pompous structures of “scientificist” criticism. He was, what every significant critic must be, an artist.

RONALD DE CARVALHO. _Pequena Historia da Literatura Brasileira._ Rio, 1919, 1922. The book was awarded a prize by the Brazilian Academy--as was the same author’s book of poetry _Poemas e Sonetos_--and appeared later in a revised, augmented edition. De Carvalho is a brilliant young man on the sunny side of thirty. His book--as, for that matter, every other recent one upon the subject--is under great debts to Romero and Verissimo, but it reveals an independent personality and an agreeably cosmopolitan conception of literature.

For the facts--as distinguished from opinions--in my own book I have relied largely upon the works of Romero, Verissimo, Lima and Carvalho. The number of lesser books that may be read is far greater than their individual worth. I would suggest, merely as a starting-point for more individual delving, such informative books as the following:

VICTOR ORBAN. _Le Brésil Litteraire._ Paris, no date. An anthology with many illustrations of authors.

M. GARCIA MEROU. _El Brasil Intelectual._ A highly diverting account by an Argentine who was once Minister to the United States.

ENRIQUE BUSTAMANTE Y BALLIVIAN. _Poetas Brasileros._ Rio, 1922. A translation into Spanish of a number of poems representing the various movements since (and including) Romanticism. Bustamante is a Peruvian poet of worth and has added short notes to his selections.

LIVRO DO CENTENARIO. Rio, 1900. As part of the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Brazil’s discovery, the government has sponsored the publication of four tomes, which covered the culture of the nation. Volume I contains a resumé of Brazilian literature by the ubiquitous Romero, in which he slashes through the field in characteristic fashion.

Very little has been translated into English from the Brazilian authors, particularly in the United States. As an example of the novel, there is, however, Aranha’s _Chanaan_, issued as _Canaan_ in Boston, 1919. In Boston, too, 1921, was issued _Brazilian Tales_, containing short stories from Machado de Assis, Coelho Netto, Medeiros e Albuquerque and Carmen Dolores. Coelho’s fine novel _Rei Negro_ (The Black King), may be procured in a good French translation under the title _Macambira_.

INDEX

Abreu, Capistrano de, 36, 38

Abreu, Casimiro de, 79, 80, 85, 88-90, 113, 134, 186

Æsop, 30

Alencar, José de, 55, 92, 94-98, 121, 129, 131, 132, 247, 291

Alencar, Mario de, 97

d’Almeida, Julia Lopes, 263

Almeida, M. de, 94, 99

Alvarenga Peixoto, I. J. de, 54, 56, 62, 66, 67

Alves, Castro, 74, 85, 91, 92, 109, 117, 129-141

Amalia, Narcisa, 263

Amaral, A. de, 132

Amaral, P. de, 48

Anchieta, Jose de, 5, 31, 32, 41

Andrade, M. G. L. de, 213

d’Annunzio, 189

Apuleius, 188

Aranha, Graça, 5, 95, 98, 124, 164, 210, 234-247

Araripe Junior, 217, 239

Azevedo, Aluizio de, 117, 121, 122, 164, 258, 259

Azevedo, Alvares de, 74, 78, 79, 80, 83-85, 90, 91, 186

Bach, 40

Balbi, A., 17

Balzac, 95, 252, 253, 290

Barbacena, 54

Barreto, Tobias, 26, 91, 92, 132, 176, 243, 244

Barros, João de, 181

Basilio da Gama, J., 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 78

Beethoven, 40

Bell, A. F. G., 31, 51

Bilac, 82, 109, 113-116, 126, 188-209, 248, 273, 274, 279

Björkman, Goran, 222, 227

Björnsen, B., 227

Blanco-Fombona, 105

Bonifacio, de Andrade, Jose, 56, 69-70, 286, 287, 288

Borges, Carvalho, 223

Borges de Barros, D., 17

Botelho de Oliveira, M., 34, 39

Bouterwek, 177

Bradstreet, Anne, 262

Braga, Theophilo, 71

Brahms, 40

Branner, J. C., 229

Bridges, Robert, 21

Brito Lima, J. de, 47

Brito, Paulo, 143

Brooks, Van Wyck, 172

Brunetière, 177

Buckle, Thomas, 7, 9, 10

Buddha, 112

Byron, 83, 112, 140

Cabello de Carbonero, Mercedes, 263

Caldas Barbosa, 67

Camara, Eugenia, 132

Camões, 11, 34, 35, 55, 59, 62, 66, 74, 77, 183

Campos, Umberto de, 267

Cardim, 5, 35, 36

Carvalho, Elysio de, 1, 24

Carvalho, Ronald de, 7, 10, 13, 26, 30, 31, 37, 40, 43, 44, 46, 55,
63, 88, 91, 94, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 113,
123, 133, 177, 178

Carducci, 107

Carnaris, 140

Carneiro, Leão, A., 232

Castello Branco, C., 290

Castilho, Antonio de, 116

Castro, G. de, 37

Catherine de Medicis, 60

Catullus, 188, 201

Caviedes, 44

Cejador y Frauca, Julio, 23

Celso, Affonso, 109

Cezar de Menezes, V. F., 47

Chateaubriand, Assis, 232

Chateaubriand, René, 95, 96

Chaucer, 14

Chekhov, 282

Chocano, 105

Christ, 140, 220, 252

Cicero, 250

Comte, A., 25

Cook, F., 36

Cooper, Fenimore, 26, 95, 96, 97

Corneille, 289

Correa, Diogo Alvares de, 60

Correia, Raymundo, 109, 110-112, 114

Cortines, Julia, 265

Costa, Benedicto, 6, 19, 23, 94, 97, 121, 164, 234, 242, 243, 246,
252, 258

Costa, Claudio M. da, 54, 61, 64, 66

Crespo, Gonçalves, 109

Croce, Benedetto, 88

Cruz e Souza, 116, 122-123

Cuervo, Rufino, 14

Cunha, Euclydes da, 7, 98, 124, 210-221, 234, 284

Cunninghame-Graham, R., 6, 210, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220,
221, 284

Dante, 62, 84, 131, 200

Darío, Rubén, 104, 105, 110, 286

Deiró, E., 177

Delfino, Luiz, 116

Denis, Ferdinand, 30, 55, 177

Deus Luz, Fr. Chr., da M., 38

Dias, Gonçalves, 55, 58, 66, 74, 77-83, 85, 90, 94, 113, 134, 136,
186, 188

Dias, Theophilo, 109, 110

Dickens, 290

Dioscorides, 35

Dostoievsky, 290

Dumas, 95

Durão, Fr. J. Santa Rita de, 54, 55, 56-59, 60

Eckermann, 20

Eça de Queiroz, 121, 290

Eguren, J. M. de, 105

Ellis, Havelock, 102, 172, 266

Emanuel, King, of Portugal, 4

Enriqueta, María, 264

Fernandes, A., 232

Ferrero, G., 98, 234, 237, 238, 240

Ferreira de Lacerda, B., 262

Fitzmaurice-Kelly, 262

Flaubert, 103

France, Anatole, 144, 164, 174, 190, 191, 240, 278, 283

Franklin, 140

Freire, Junqueira, 78, 79, 80, 85, 87-88, 90, 186

Freyre, Gilberto, 232

Garrett, 58, 80, 87

Gautier, Th., 274

Girriti de Belzu, Joana Manuela, 263

Godoy, Lucilla, _see_ Mistral, G.

Goethe, 19, 21, 84, 123, 242

Gomes Carneiro, D. de, 38

Gómez de Avellaneda, 262, 263

Góngora, 39, 42, 47

Gonzaga, Thomaz Antonio, 54, 61, 63-66, 67

Gorin, B., 50

Gourmont, Remy de, 13

Gracchi, 140

Gsell, 190

Guimarães, Bernardo, 94, 98

Guimarães Junior, Luis, 91, 106, 109

Gusmão, A. de, 48, 225

Gusmão, B. L. de, 48

Hals, Frans, 231

Hawthorne, 26

Heine, 136

Henry II, (France), 60

Herculano, A. de, 80, 87

Heredia, 274

Homer, 84, 179

Horace, 87, 168

Hugo, 87, 91, 95, 130, 131, 133, 136, 141, 193, 196, 253

Ibarbourou, Juana de, 264

Ibsen, 240, 286

Ines de la Cruz, Sor Juana, 262, 263

Isaacs, Jorge, 99, 234

João, Dom, 68, 73, 226, 227

Juarez, 140

Julia, Francisca, 193, 261-276

Kant, 242

Keats, 275

Kipling, 260, 290

Klopstock, 87

Körner, T., 21

Kossuth, 140

La Fontaine, 30

Lamartine, 87

Leconte de Lisle, 274

Lemaître, 169, 174

Leopardi, 83, 112

Lewisohn, Ludwig, 170, 171, 172

Lima, M. Oliveira de, 33, 36, 37, 49, 120, 126, 222-233, 273

Lobato, Monteiro, 15, 124, 125, 273, 277-291

Longfellow, 26

Lope de Vega, 37, 42

Lopez, B., 122, 123

Lopez, Fernão, 181

Lorente, M. J., 237

Lowell, Amy, 264

Lucian, 188

Lucretius, 87

Macaulay, 177

Macedo, J. M. de, 92-94, 98, 121, 185

Machado, Gilka, 264

Machado de Assis, J. M. de, 91, 93, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 114, 116,
117, 118-121, 122, 123, 126, 129, 131,
142-164, 165, 168, 174, 193, 208, 275, 290

Maciel, A., 212, 213, 216, 218, 219, 220

Maeterlinck, 240

Maffei, 66

Magalhães, Gandavo, Pero de, 35

Magalhães, Gonçalves de, 50, 55, 58, 74-77, 79, 100, 226

Maistre, De, 87

Martí, 229

Martin, P. A., 226

Martins Junior, 105

Martins, Oliveira, 223

Martins Penna, L. C., 100

Martins, Silveira, 223

Matto, Clorinda, 263

Mattos, E. de, 38

Mattos Guerra, Gregorio de, 38, 40-45, 52, 56, 67, 114, 239

Maupassant, 278, 290

Medeiros e Albuquerque, 173

Mello, Mario, 232

Mencken, H. L., 14, 172

Mendonça, S. de, 223

Menéndez y Pelayo, R., 14

Menezes, E. de, 123

Menezes, L. da Cunha de, 54

Mérou, García, 98

Metastasio, 51

Milton, 87

Miranda, Sá de, 11

Mistral, Gabriela, pseud. of L. Godoy, 264

Mohammed, 220

Molière, 51

Montalvo, Juan, 287

Moraes, Manoel de, 38

Moraes, Prudente de, 212

More, P. E., 170, 171

Murat, Luiz, 116

Musset, 83, 145

Nabuco, J., 7, 235, 243, 244

Napoleon, 56, 140

Netto, Coelho, 24, 25, 95, 124, 164, 210, 248-260, 273

Nietzsche, 242, 286

Nobrega, 4

Norberto de Sousa, J., 50, 92

Norberto Silva, 175, 177

Offenbach, 50

Oliveira, Alberto, 109, 110, 112-113, 188

Ottoni, José Eloy, 68, 69

Ovid, 87

Palma, Angélica, 263

Pederneiras, Mario, 123

Pedro II, Dom, 93

Peixoto, Afranio, 15, 109, 131

Pereyra, Carlos, 33, 231

Petrarch, 62, 63

Pinheiro, F., 26, 175

Pliny, 35

Pocahontas, 60

Poe, 26, 123, 256, 282

Pombal, 57, 61

Pompeia, Raul, 117

Porto-Alegre, M. A. de, 55, 77, 79, 223

Pushkin, 112

Quevedo, 42, 44

Rabello, Laurindo, 78, 79, 85-87, 90, 134, 186

Renan, 164

Ribeiro, B., 11, 66, 181

Ribeiro, João, 17, 26, 33, 51, 97, 176, 274

Ribeiro, Julio, 117

Ribeiro, Thomaz, 116

Rocha Pitta, 5, 47, 48, 60, 227, 244

Rodó, 105, 166, 167, 171, 172, 173, 174, 229, 286

Rolim, Zalina, 263

Romero, Sylvio, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
33, 36, 38, 40, 41, 49, 50, 55, 62, 67, 70, 91, 106,
116, 125, 166, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178

Rotrou, 51

Rousseau, 69, 236

Sá, Antonio de, 39

Saenz-Peña, R., 231

Sainte-Beuve, 177

Salvador, Fr. V. de, 38, 180

Salvarieta, Policarpa, 261

São Carlos, 68, 69

Sánchez, L. A., 44

Santa Maria Itaparica, M. de, 47

Sayce, A. H., 16

Schopenhauer, 242

Scott, 97

Sebastian, Dom (King), 217, 218

Shaw, B., 92

Shelley, 200

Silva, A. J. da, 48, 49-51, 64

Silva Alvarenga, M. I. de, 54, 56, 62, 66

Silva, Francisca Julia da, _See_ Julia.

Silva, José Asunción, 260

Silva, J. C. da, 273

Sismondi, 177

Smith, John, 60

Soares de França, G. de, 47

Soares de Souza, Gabriel, 5, 35, 179, 182

Souza, Claudio de, 100, 124

Souza Caldas, 68, 69

Souza, Fr. Luiz de, 183

Spingarn, Joel Elias, 172

Squire, Charles, 3

Stecchetti, 107

Storni, Alfonsina, 264, 266

St. Vincent Millay, Edna, 264

Sucre, 287

Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 50

Taine, 252

Tasso, 37

Tavora, Franklin, 98

Taunay, Viscount Escragnole de, 98-99, 121

Teasdale, Sara, 264

Teixeira e Souza, 92, 94, 98

Teixeira Pinto, Bento, 31, 33, 34

Thackeray, 85

Tolstoi, 240, 290

Tucumana, Manuela la, 261

Twain, 282

Uccello, P., 190

Ureña, Salomé, 264

Valera, 14

Van Doren, Carl, 97

Varella, Fagundes, 91, 117, 134

Varnhagen, 19, 33, 35, 69, 175, 177

Vasari, 190

Vaz de Caminha, 4

Verissimo, Jose, 14, 15, 16, 33, 34, 39, 41, 42, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59,
60, 61, 64, 65, 71, 78, 80, 81, 83, 86, 88, 89, 90,
91, 98, 106, 109, 116, 118, 120, 123, 126, 133, 134,
136, 165-187, 208, 214, 219, 220, 221, 229, 240, 241,
250, 252, 265

Verlaine, 43

Vespucci, 4, 5

Vicente, G., 11, 181

Vieira, Adelina, 263

Vieira, Antonio, 38

Vigny, de, 95

Violante do Ceo, Sor, 262

Virgil, 131

Wagner, 286

Washington, 287

Wells, 290

Whitman, 26

Winchester, 169

Wolf, 10, 26, 42, 50, 55, 58, 63, 66, 69, 72, 125, 175

Wordsworth, 275

Zola, 94, 117, 121, 235, 240