http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt658037xp No online items Literatura de Cordel collection, 1918-1995 Finding aid prepared by Rebecca Lippman; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé. UCLA Library Special Collections Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library Box 951575 Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1575 (310) 825-4988 [email protected] ©2013 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Literatura de Cordel collection, 1420 1 1918-1995 Title: Literatura de Cordel collection Collection number: 1420 Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections Language of Material: English Physical Description: 9.8 linear ft.(25 document boxes) Date (inclusive): 1918-1995 Abstract: The term literatura de cordel, which translates from Portuguese to “literature on a string,” describes the tradition of selling printed poems in pamphlets that are pinned to strings in the open-air markets of Northeastern Brazil. One of the largest of its kind in the United States, the Literatura de Cordel Collection consists of 4500 - 5000 illustrated popular poems published as folhetos (pamphlets) between the years of 1918 and 1995. Arranged into four series titled Religious Stories, Pelejas, Love Stories and Profane Tales, the item level description of the collection highlights the names of publishers, illustrators, advertisers and authors of each pamphlet. Language of Materials: Materials are in Portuguese. Physical Location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information. Restrictions on Access COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information. Restrictions on Use and Reproduction Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Literatura de Cordel (Collection 1420). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library. Provenance/Source of Acquisition Initial donation by Dr. L. Lauerhass in 1985; approximately 300 pamphlets acquired annually since. Processing Information Processed by Rebecca Lippman in 2012-2013 in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Jillian Cuellar. Biography/History The term literatura de cordel, which translates from Portuguese to “literature on a string,” describes the tradition of selling printed poems in pamphlets that are pinned to strings in the open-air markets of Northeastern Brazil. However the term is a relatively recent way to refer to what were simply called folhetos (pamphlets) before the 1960’s and have existed in Brazil since the late 19th century. Traditional pamphlets cover topics as diverse as biblical reinterpretation, melodramatic love stories, musical and poetic duels, northeastern folk tales, political history, and journalistic reports of natural disasters such as floods, fires and droughts. Scholars such as Candace Slater, Mark J. Curran and Umberto Peregrino argue that, while the content and material form of these pamphlets resemble chapbook-like materials that were imported from Portugal in the mid 19th century, the practice of storytelling in the Northeast has its origins in songs that date back to the 1750’s. Singing poets, like the notorious family of Antonio Ugolino Nunes da Costa in Teixeira, Paraíba, participated in lively on-the-spot poetic duels called cantoria de repentista or cantoria de viola, where competitors worked to outwit one another both musically and verbally. Remnants of this tradition are most visible in written “Pelejas,” which are pamphlets that reproduce improvised poetic duels or maintain a poetic structure that includes multiple voices. The first printed Brazilian pamphlets appeared in the late 1800’s and were not widely spread until a period of accelerated production halfway through the 20th century. Small publishers like Francisco Rodrigues Lopes, who started Editora Guajarina in Belém, Pará in 1914, bought equipment and created businesses out of the production and distribution of poems and woodblock illustrations. José Bernardo da Silva, another successful editor, started Tipografia São Francisco as a small operation in Juazeiro do Norte in 1932, but as he purchased the rights to other small printers’ archives the company grew into a thriving business in the 1950’s. During the next several decades literatura de cordel began to appear in new contexts as well. Other kinds of institutions like the Casa das Crianças de Olinda in Olinda, Pernambuco commissioned poets and illustrators to make pamphlets, and state funded initiatives, like the Programa Nacional de Melhoramento da Cana-de-Açucar (National Program for Improving Sugar Cane) in Maceió, Alagoas, hired poets to write cordel with the purpose of educating people about new Literatura de Cordel collection, 1420 2 1918-1995 agricultural and industrial practices. Towards the 1980’s similar initiatives for public safety generated versions of cordel that teach people about AIDS, sexual health and substance abuse. During this time both international and local historians began to consider the tradition as a valuable part of popular Brazilian culture. The Universidade Federal da Paraíba, for instance, created a research group (Núcleo de Pesquisa e Documentação da Cultura Popular) that recorded traditional stories in cordel form. In the 1970’s documentary filmmakers made films like “O país de São Saruê” (Vladamir Carvalho 1971) and “Nordeste: cordel, repente, canção” (Tânia Quaresma 1975), which recorded the process of printing, singing, distributing and selling pamphlets. Even though traditional folhetos evolved to include new topics and audiences towards the end of the 20th century, other forms of popular entertainment like television and radio received more attention and the production of these poems began to decline. After José Bernardo da Silva’s death, for example, Tipografia São Francisco fell to financial woes in the 1970’s and was sold to the State of Ceará in 1982 as Lira Nordestina, which continued to preserve and display cordel but stopped producing pamphlets in large quantities. As more traditional venues for producing literatura de cordel began to disappear, new urban audiences and authors such as Apolônio Alves dos Santos, Franklin Maxado Nordestino and Gonçalo Ferreira da Silva in the southeastern states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro took on the tasks of producing, consuming and preserving cordel. New institutional spaces, like the Academia Brasileira de Literatura de Cordel (est. 1982) and the Arquivo-Museu de Literatura Brasileira (est. 1972) at Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa in Rio de Janeiro, actively collected cordel and began to generate histories and archives for the tradition. Despite the decline in the production of physical pamphlets in the latter half of the 20th century, the form and traditional content of cordel are still thriving aspects of contemporary Brazilian literature, film, television and music. Since the late 1800’s, when authors and scholars such as José de Alencar and Sílvio Romero took an active interest in preserving and reproducing the stories of the northeast, the narratives of these pamphlets have influenced Brazilian literary and national consciousnesses in multi-media contexts. Authors like João Guimarães Rosa, Jorge Amado, João Cabral de Melo Neto and playwright Ariano Suassuna make direct reference to narratives of literatura de cordel, while others, like Antônio Callado, Jorge de Lima, Ferreira Gullar and Clarice Lispector show less explicit reference to the tradition in their literary works. Popular musicians called upon the earlier storytelling tradition of cantoria de viola as inspiration for recorded albums like Ednardo’s 1973 “O romance do pavao misterioso,” the title track of which became the theme song for Dias Gomes’ 1976 novela (Brazilian soap opera) “Saramandaia.” Iconic films from the Cinema Novo movement like Glauber Rocha’s “Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol” (1964) or “O dragão da maldade contra o santo guerreiro” (1969), and Paulo Gil Soares' “Proezas de Satanás na Vila de Leva e Traz” (1967) relied on a mythology of the northeast that is often propagated by folhetos that tell the stories of heroic Brazilian rural bandits and religious figures like Lampião, Antônio Silvino, Padre Cícero and Frei Damião. In recent years many of Ariano Suassuna’s plays explicitly inspired by cordel, including “Auto da Compadecida” (1957), “A chegada de Lampião ao inferno (1966) and “A historia de Romeu e Julieta” (1996) have been successfully adapted for television shows or feature length films. In 2011 the television company Globo released a novela called “Cordel Encantado” which is centered on northeastern traditions and stories. Contemporary musicians like the multi-genre rock band Cordel do Fogo Encantado frequently cite cordel as lyric and musical inspiration. Furthermore, scholars in fields as diverse as media studies, ethnomusicology, communications, literature, history and cultural studies continue to explore the many the influences of literatura de cordel in 19th and