Poetry and technique: concrete poetry in Brazil.

Abstract. Drawing on the writings of leading participants such as Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, this article examines the emergence of Concrete Poetry in postwar Brazil. Although literacy was then rapidly increasing, the status of poetry was challenged by the new media, such as film, that drew mass audiences. Responding to this challenge, Concrete Poetry did not retreat into a Classical revival, but aimed at a style of verse rooted in the realities of modern technology, and capable of being popular. It thus claimed to be true not only to its time, but also to its literary heritage--a heritage that was in fact validated rather than betrayed by its modernity.

Keywords. Concrete poetry; Brazil; Mass Media

Resumo. Aproveitando-se de textos dos seus praticantes mais marcantes, tais como Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, este artigo examina o aparecimento da Poesia Concreta no Brasil do pos-guerra. Apesar de uma forte subida na taxa de alfabetismo, a situacao da poesia foi posta em causa pelas novas formas de comunicacao, exemplificadas pelo cinema, que chegavam a uma audiencia de massa. Respondendo ao desafio, a Poesia Concreta nao optou por uma ressurgencia classica, mas antes esbocou um estilo de poesia radicado nas realidades da tecnologia moderna, com capacidade de captar as massas. Garantiu assim ser fiel nao so ao seu proprio tempo mas a sua heranca artistica tambem--heranca esta que ficava, de facto, mais valorizada que traida pela modernidade dela.

Palavras chave. Poesia Concreta; Brasil; Comunicacao de Massa

The last years of the Brazilian Empire and the two first decades of the Republic, proclaimed in 1889, marked the high point of Parnassian poetry in Brazil. At that time, a phenomenon without precedents in the cultural history of the country was taking place: writers became professionals, mainly through their work in the press, and became prominent public figures. Literary life attracted broader attention, even defining what should be fashionable. Especially after the declaration of the Republic, linguistic norms and the formation of standardized cultivated language became the chief object of attention and debates, as an instrument of national unity and civilization. Meanwhile literature was made into an institution, a process that led to the foundation, in 1897, of the Academia Brasileira de Letras [Brazilian Academy of Letters] by Machado de Assis, who would become its lifelong president. To use the term Antonio Candido employed in describing the history of Brazilian literature, we should celebrate Parnassianism as the moment when literature was fully constituted as a system. In this system, author and public interacted through a style and a set of themes widely divulged and accepted as an ideal of culture. (1)

Soon after World War I, however, and with the emergence of the Modernist Movement in the Week of Modern Art, in 1922, Parnassian and Realist prose and poetry--but especially poetry--were harshly attacked by the new writers more identified with European avant-garde ideals. The Week, Modernism's emblematic moment, can also be seen as inaugurating a new phase in national culture after the Parnassian success. It is the moment of the vanguards, whose most evident characteristic, from the point of view of reception, is the divorce between the writer and the public. The event was greeted with uproar, which undoubtedly marked a rejection of, or aesthetic resistance to, the new, as well as a protest against the break-up of what the 'bourgeoisie' saw as a cultural pact, since the young vanguards noisily discarded and dismissed the literary ideals and values formerly presented as a path to civilization, in the Republic's early years. That is why the greater part of this public remained loyal to Parnassian authors, and hostile or indifferent to the first generation of Modernists. That is also why Parnassian revivals appear throughout the history of Brazilian poetry, right up to the present day.

After 1930, Modernist literature gained a greater public with the so-called 'generation of 1930'. That was the moment when the novel from the Northeastern region and poetry in free verse gained ground, bringing out the work of Brazilian writers such as Jorge Amado, Graciliano Ramos, Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Cecilia Meireles, to name just a few. In 1945, with the end of World War II, the Modernist period came to an end and literature no longer seemed to have the same importance in shaping Brazilian culture. In the literary field, a new generation started to emerge at this time, explicitly identifying themselves as 'the generation of 1945', in order to mark the post-war period. They shared a clear nostalgia for Classicism, in line with the world-wide tendency of the time, and promoted a kind of Parnassian revival regarding tone, and a renewed interest in the established forms of poetic tradition in the Portuguese language. However, the high point of the literary system in the early Republican period had already passed, and the general impression, which would strengthen greatly in the 1950s, was that the new period was characterized by the disappearance of a wider public interest in literature. In the second half of the twentieth century this theme is so persistent in considerations about poetry, especially by the poets themselves, that it seems difficult to understand the actual movement of recent Brazilian literature--especially poetry--without taking that decline in public interest into account.