12 - Brazilian poetry from Modernism to the 1990s

Summary

With the advent of Modernism, intellectual and cultural life in Brazil found new impetus. The pioneers of the movement launched a programme of reform and renewal. They defended artistic freedom and encouraged innovation. Even sixty years later, the excitement they had engendered had scarcely abated. Modernism was officially launched in February 1922 at São Paulo’s Teatro Municipal with the participation of writers, artists, and musicians. Three separate programmes included lectures outlining the movement’s objectives, readings of prose and poetry reflecting the new aesthetics, and musical recitals. The exhibition of cubist and expressionist works of art displayed in the theatre foyer aroused hostile reactions before the public even entered the auditorium. Graça Aranha (1868–1931), an established writer who achieved lasting fame with his best-selling novel Canaã (1902) [Canaan], gave the inaugural lecture entitled “A emoção estética na arte moderna”. Expressing unequivocal support for the radical changes proposed by younger artists working in various media, Graça Aranha’s provocative statements enraged die-hard traditionalists and aroused some skepticism even amongst the Modernists themselves. With suitably opulent rhetoric he welcomed this “Maravilhosa aurora!” [“Wondrous dawn”] with its “pinturas extravagantes, esculturas absurdas, música alucinada, poesia aerea e desarticulada” (Espírito moderno, 1925) [“extravagant paintings, absurd sculptures, hallucinated music, vague, disarticulated poetry”]. The poet Menotti del Picchia (1892–1989) expounded modernist ideals. Mario de Andrade (1893–1945), the movement’s guiding spirit, read extracts from Vaulicéia desvairada [Hallucinated City] and his scornful dismissal of bourgeois values provoked heckling and jeering, and when Ronald de Carvalho (1893–1935) recited Os sapos [The Toads], parodying the literary establishment, the outraged audience became hysterical.