Latin-American Studies

BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

By JOHN M. PARKER, Institute of Latin-American Studies, University of Glasgow

I. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GENERAL The labour of Plfnio Doyle (Historia de Revistas e Jornais Literarios) continues with arts devoted to individual journals, RevLR, no. 40: 53-68, being on Festa and RevLR, no. 4I : 54-70 on Revista de Antropofagia. The same journal has other useful bibl. material in no. 4I: M. E. Melo e Cunha, 'Catalogo e indice de "Os Cadernos de Cultura" ( I952-I964)' (pp. 99-I I I) lists, with brief description of contents or subject matter, I40 vols, followed by author index; Fernando Sales, 'Livros novos de I920' (pp. 37-53), is a most useful account and catalogue of works by nearly 6o writers publ. in an important year and serves as a good reminder. Turning to individual authors we have T. P. A. Lopez, 'Cronologia Geral da obra de Mario de Andrade em volume', RIEB, I969, no. 7: 139-72, which usefully compares composition and publ. dates. Clearly of importance, though uneven in quality, is the Diciondrio Critico do Moderno Romance Brasileiro, Belo Horizonte, Grupo Gente Nova, 487 pp. (vol. I, A-J, vol. 2, L-V + index); the word 'moderno' in the title seems out of place, since the earliest entry dates back to the I 8th c., and while accepting as perhaps inevitable certain organizational defects, we may raise an eyebrow at the capriciousness in allotting space to authors and individual novels. LBR, 7, no. I: I04-I8, has a current bibl. of Brazilian fine arts, folklore, geography and history. Mario da Silva Brito, Didrio Intemporal, R, Civilizat;ao Brasileira, I92 pp., is a mixture of musings and some crit. notes and personal reminiscences on such writers as Oswald and Mario de An• drade, Bilac, Raimundo Correia, Monteiro Lobato, , with the piece on Mario de Andrade, drawing on their private corr., taking pride of place. Thiers Martins Moreira, Visao em vdrios tempos, R, Sao Jose, 204 pp., has essays on , Iracema, Modernism, Varnhagen and Cavalcanti Proen<;a's curious novel, Manuscrito Holandes ou a Peleja do Caboclo Jfitavai como monstro Macobeba. A welcome coiL 377 is Ledo lvo, Poesia Observada, R, Orfeu, I967, 239 pp.; sub• titled Ensaios s6bre a criayiio poetica, it incl. important texts otherwise difficult to obtain now, such as 0 Preto no Branco, LifilO de Mario de Andrade, while also reproducing the vol. Paraisos de Papel ( CEC, I 96 I) as well as other scattered material. A posthumous publ. Rodrigo Octa.vio Filho, Simbolismo e Penumbrismo, R. Sao jose, I46 pp., incl. his study 'Sincretismo e Transi~ao: 0 Penumbrismo' from Coutinho's A Lit. no Brasil, preceding it with 'Reftexos do Simbolismo na Poesia Brasileira', a mixture of scholarship and personal reminiscence which must have been written in the I92o's. The title essay of , Vanguarda e Subdesenvolvimento, R, Civiliza~ao Brasileira, I969, I32 pp., which receives favourable reviews by Adao Ventura and Nelly Novaes Coelho in MGSL, 2I March and I 7 October respectively, begins promisingly but falls into precisely the fault it criticises in the Concretists, namely inter• nationalism and abstraction; he spends too much time defend• ing a Marxist approach in a vacuum and ends up basing his whole argument on two poems of Melo Neto, which he twists to support his Lukacsian intentions. In the Brazilian section of R. A. Preto-Rodas, Negritude as a theme in the poetry ofthe Portuguese• speaking world, Gainesville, Univ. of Florida P., 85 pp., the amount of space given to earlier negro and mulatto poets is an indication of the thinness of material in the modern period contemporary with French-African negritude. In a no. of Caravelle devoted to (no. IS), Jean Roche has an interest• ing art., 'Du vocabulaire poetique bresilien' (pp. 73-I28), using a process of indexing to determine the frequency and distribution of vocabulary in IS poets from the Romantic period to the present day; clearly a useful exercise if kept in perspective. 0. Ribeiro Neto, 'Os primeiros teatros de Sao Paulo', RIEB, I 969, no. 7: 63-78, is informative on the theatre buildings, impressarios, performances, etc., in the I8th and I9th cs. 2. CoLONIAL In an important rev. art. of the recent Obras Completas of Gregorio de Matos (Salvador, Janaina, I969, 7 vols), Heitor Martins, MGSL, 29 August, severely criticizes the editors for clarifying none of the problems and adding further confusion;