That Gentle Epic: Writing and Elegy in the Heroic Poetry of Cecilia Meireles
1997; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 112; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mln.1997.0013
ISSN1080-6598
Autores Tópico(s)Sociology and Education in Brazil
ResumoWhen measured against the best poets of the Modernist legacy of the 1920s in Brazil, some critics today still continue to perceive Cecilia Meireles as a facile, unimaginative, and accommodated writer. A more careful examination of her poetry, however, demonstrates that she worked against the grain to maintain her poetic belief in an era when Modernism in Brazil repudiated traditional forms. She disturbed some of her contemporary literati with the intimate tone and religious view communicated by her poetry. She also vocalized very clearly and concisely ideas about poetry in general, and consistently adhered to the artistic creeds so eloquently expressed in her lectures, her own verses, and her cr6nicas. That she is unjustly regarded as a secondary poet by some major Brazilian critics is not surprising. In their criticism, Meireles passes inconspicuously before a gallery of giants such as Manuel Bandeira, Mario de Andrade, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Murilo Mendes, and Joao Cabral de Melo Neto.' The exclusion of female names on the list is neither accidental nor intentional; rather, it explains a canonical situation that, despite its relevance, I will not discuss here. What I am concerned with is Meireles's epic or heroic collections of
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