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Sleep, poetry, and João Cabral's Taise book’: a revaluation of Pedra do Sono

1978; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382782000355043

1469-3550

John Gledson,

Literature, Culture, and Criticism

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: CABRAL DE MELO NETO, JOÃO (1920–1999)DREAMS/VISIONS [AS LITERARY//CULTURAL THEME & TECHNIQUE]PEDRA DO SONO [J. CABRAL]SURREALISM/SURREALISMO Notes 1. A valuable corrective to this prevalent view is the article of José Guilherme Merquior, ‘Nuvem civil sonhada’, in A Astúcia da Mímese (Rio de Janeiro 1972), 69–172. The discussion unfortunately begins with O Engenheiro (1945). 2. The most useful accounts of the book, though they underestimate Cabral's awareness of what he was trying to do, are in the articles of Ángel Crespo and Pilar Gómez Bedate, ‘Realidad y forma en la poesía de João Cabral de Melo’, Revista de Cultura Brasileña, VIII (1964), 5–69, and Luiz Costa Lima, ‘A traição consequente ou a poesia de Cabral’, Lira e Antilira (Rio de Janeiro 1968), 237–390. 3. See Fábio Freixieiro, ‘Depoimento de João Cabral de Melo Neto’, Dr Razão à Emoção II (Rio de Janeiro 1971), 179–92; p. 182. This valuable article is in fact a transcription of an interview, in which the poet's comments are reproduced in the third person. 4. The first edition (Recife 1942) contained, as well as the poems in the Poesias Completas (Rio de Janeiro 1968): ‘As amadas’, ‘Dois estudos’, ‘Homem falando no escuro’, ‘A Miss’, ‘O regimento’, ‘Canção’ (there were thus two poems with this title in the first edition), ‘Jardim’, ‘A mulher no hotel’, ‘O aventureiro’. Of these, only three (‘Canção’, ‘Jardim’ and ‘A mulher no hotel’) were included in the intermediate edition of Poemas Reunidos (Rio de Janeiro 1954). ‘Canção’ is reproduced in the above-mentioned article of Crespo and Bedate, 19. 5. Freixieiro, op. cit., 182. He also says—what is obvious from the text—that the book is not the result of automatic writing. 6. Crespo and Bedate, op. cit., 18. 7. All references to Cabral's poems, unless otherwise stated, are from the (recently reprinted) 1968 edition. I must take the opportunity of thanking Dr Plínio Doyle, who, amongst numerous other kindnesses, allowed me to consult his copy of the 1942 edition. 8. Separata da Renovação (Recife 1941). Because of the rarity of this work, I have chosen to quote from it at some length. Since the pages are unnumbered, I have numbered them, beginning with the first page of text, 1 to 9. The punctuation is a little erratic in the original, but I have not corrected it. I have also retained Cabral's slightly idiosyncratic spelling. 9. One result of his awareness of the peculiar status of painting is his insistence on the inferiority of reproductions to originals, even in the case of such an apparently ‘mechanical’ painter as Mondrian. See ‘Escritos com o corpo’ (second section), 55–56. 10. João Cabral de Melo, Joan Miró (Rio de Janeiro 1952), 44. 11. Valéry is mentioned, in a tone of envious, if perhaps half-ironic, admiration for his ability to inspect the self ‘with open eyes’, in Considerações, 6. 12. See Antônio Houaiss, Seis poetas e um problema (Rio de Janeiro 1967), 185. 13. See, e.g., Freixieiro, op. cit., 186. 14. Luiz Costa Lima, op. cit., 240ff., mentions Drummond and Mendes as important influences, and Benedito Nunes, João Cabral de Melo Neto (Petrópolis 1971 ), 20–21, says the same, adding the name of Joaquim Cardozo, whose influence probably operated less through his poetry than through his friendship and intellectual affinity with Cabral. Drummond's influence does seem to have been the most important, however; the book is dedicated to him (amongst others), and in the Freixieiro article/interview cited above, he is mentioned repeatedly, where Mendes is not mentioned at all. Costa Lima and Nunes are agreed—and I would agree with them also—that it is above all in the imagery that Mendes’ influence can be found. Mendes’ vocabulary, especially his nouns, finds many echoes in Pedra do Sono; v. note 18. 15. Freixieiro, op. cit., 186. 16. Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Obra Completa (Rio de Janeiro 1968), 53. All references to Drummond's poems are to this edition. 17. See ‘Autobiografia para urna revista’, ibid., 547. 18. An interesting parallel can be drawn between the dislocation of the personality found in Drummond, and Mendes’ repeated humbling of himself in the face of God: e.g. Eis-me nu, vazio e pobre a sombra fèrtil de Deus não me larga um só instante. (Poesias 1925–55 [Rio de Janeiro 1959], 195). Here too, the self, on the point of destruction, is nevertheless retained. It may be that, in this sense, Mendes’ influence on Cabral operated in somewhat the same fashion as that of Drummond. 19. These are the dates given in Duas Águas (Rio de Janeiro 1956); the Poesias Completas gives 1940–41. 20. O Engenheiro, the subsequent collection, was organized on such a basis, at least for its first poems, according to the poet's own testimony (see Freixieiro, op. cit., 182). In the second edition of Pedra do Sono (in Poemas Reunidos) the titles were removed and replaced by numbers; which would seem to suggest that some consecutive order was intended, whether it corresponds to that of composition or not. 21. In ‘Necrológio dos desiludidos do amor’, a phrase which may be the origin of the use of'meu quarto’—'Do meu quarto ouço a fuzilaria’—reminds one of the same distance from violent events referred to earlier. It is an indication of the difficulty of being sure that a given line in Drummond is the source of a given line in Cabral, impossible as it is to be unaware of the importance of the influence in general. 22. Luiz Costa Lima, op. cit., 241–42. 23. Merquior (op. cit., 79) correctly insists on the deliberate use of ‘sonhar’ and ‘pensar’ as equivalents in ‘O Engenheiro’. 24. Pedra do Sono (Recife 1942). The pages of this edition are not numbered. 25. cf. Vou-me embora pra Pasárgada Lá sou amigo do reiLá tenho a mulher que eu queroNa cama que escolherei … 26. Pedro do Sono (Recife 1942). 27. A precedent for this can be found in Drummond's ‘Aurora’ (Brejo das Almas), in which the poet referred to in the first line is obviously in some sense also an ; ‘I’. 28. Antologia Poética (Rio de Janeiro 1967), 275. 29. cf. Le vent se lève! … Il faut tenter de vivre! L'air immense ouvre et referme mon livre … Paul Valéry, Oeuvres I (Paris 1965), 151.