FOOTNOTES:
[1] Op. Cit. P. 51.
[2] See his Cantos Populares do Brasil, Contos Populares do Brasil, Estudos sobre a Poesia Popular Brasileira. These works he summarizes in Chapter VII, Volume I, of his Historia da Litteratura Brasileira, 2a Edição melhorada pelo auctor. Rio de Janeiro, 1902.
[3] The frank, practical song, minus the African refrain, runs thus: “You like me and I like you. If pa consents, oh my darling, I’ll marry you.… If you’ll give me my clothes and furnish my food, if you pay all the household expenses, oh, my darling, I’ll come to live with you.”
[4] Op. Cit. P. 58.
[5] Résumé de l’histoire Littéraire du Portugal suivi du Résumé de l’histoire littéraire du Brésil. Ferdinand Denis. Paris, 1826. The Brazilian section occupies pages 513-601.
[6] For an enlightening exposition of the Portuguese popular refrain known as cossantes, see A. F. G. Bell’s Portuguese Literature, London, 1922, pages 22-35. Their salient trait, like that of their Brazilian relative, is a certain wistful sadness.
[7] Oliveira Lima. Formación Historica de la Nacionalidad Brasileña. Madrid, 1918. This Spanish version, by Carlos Pereyra, is much easier to procure than the original. Pp. 35-38.
[8] See, however, on the matter of priority, José Verissimo’s Estudos de Literatura Brazileira, Quarta Serie. Pp. 25-64.
[9] Ibid. P. 54. Also pp. 63-64. “To be the first, the most ancient, the oldest in any pursuit, is a merit.… This is the only merit that Bento Teixeira can boast.”
[10] Verissimo, always a suggestive commentator, presents an interesting reason for these early national panegyrics. See the essay cited in the preceding notes, pages 50-51. He attributes the swelling chorus of eulogies to what might today be called a national “inferiority complex.” “Having no legitimate cause for glory,—great deeds accomplished or great men produced,—we pride ourselves ingenuously upon our primitive Nature, or upon the opulence,—which we exaggerate—of our soil.”
[11] Oliveira Lima, op. cit. pages 45-46, comments interestingly upon Brazil’s lack of a national poet during the sixteenth century. “Brazil did not possess, during the XVIth century a national poet who could express, with all the sincerity of his soul, the passion of the struggle undertaken by culture against nature.… And this absence of a representative poet is evidenced throughout our literature, since, after all, the Indianism of the XIXth century was only a poetic convention grafted upon the trunk of the political break with the Portuguese fatherland.… The fact is that the exploits of yesterday still await the singer who shall chant them. The Indians were idealized by a Romanticism in quest of elevated souls; the Africans found defenders who rose in audacious flight, but the brave pioneers of the conquest, men of epic stature, have not received even the same measure of sympathy.”
[12] Ronald de Carvalho. Op. Cit. P. 87-88.
[13] De Carvalho. Op. P. 96-97.
[14] “I have explained the fruits and the vegetables that cause so much jealousy on Portugal’s part; I have listed those things for which Brazil may be envied. As title to preference over all the rest of the earth it enfolds four A’s. It has the first A in its arvoredos (trees), ever green and fair to gaze upon; it has the second A in its pure atmosphere (ares), so pleasant and certain in temperature; it has the third A in its cool waters (aguas), that refresh the throat and bring health; the fourth A in its delightful sugar (assucar), which is the fairest gift of all the world. The four A’s then, are arvoredos, assucar, aguas, ares.”
[15] Estudos, quarta serie. P. 47-48.
[16] Le Brésil Litteraire. Histoire de la Littérature brésilienne suivie d’un choix de morceaux tirés des meilleurs auteurs b(r)ésiliens par Ferdinand Wolf. Berlin, 1863. See, for a discussion of this book, the Selective Critical Bibliography at the back of the present work.
[17] Op. Cit. P. 109.
[18] The Brazilians are beasts, hard at work their lives long, in order to support Portuguese knaves.
[19] For a good résumé of Caviedes’ labours, with valuable biographical indications, see Luis Alberto Sánchez, Historia de la Literatura Peruana, I. Los Poetas de la Colonia, Pp. 186-200.
[20] Ibid. P. 190.
[21] The sun is born and lasts but a single day; dark night follows upon the light; beauty dies amidst the gloomy shadows and joy amid continued grief. Why, then, if the sun must die, was it born? Why, if light be beautiful, does it not endure? How is beauty thus transfigured? How does pleasure thus trust pain? But let firmness be lacking in sun and light, let permanence flee beauty, and in joy, let there be a note of sadness. Let the world begin, at length, in ignorance; for, whatever the boon, it is by nature constant only in its inconstancy.
[22] “The story of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand is but a child’s tale compared with the fearless adventure of our colonial brothers.” Carvalho. Op. Cit. P. 127.
[23] Oliveira Lima. Aspectos da Litteratura Colonial Brazileira. Leipzig, 1896. This youthful work of the eminent cosmopolite furnishes valuable as well as entertaining collateral reading upon the entire colonial period in Brazil. The standpoint is often historical rather than literary, yet the proportions are fairly well observed.
[24] See, for just such inclusion, B. Gorin’s Die Geshichte vun Yiddishen Theater, New York, 1918, 2 vols. (In Yiddish.) Page 33, Volume I. With reference to the Jew and comic opera, rumours of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s partial Jewish origin still persist.
[25] Diminutive of moda, and signifying, literally, a new song. The modinha is the most characteristic of Brazilian popular forms, a transformation of the troubadors’ jácara and the Portuguese fado. It is generally replete with love and the allied feelings.
[26] The chief works of Antonio José da Silva are Vida do Grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança (1733); Ezopaida ou Vida de Ezopo (1734); Os Encantos de Medea (1735); Amphytrião ou Jupiter e Alcmena (1736); Labyrintho de Creta (1736); Guerras do Alecrim e da Manjerona (1737); a highly amusing Molièresque farce, considered by many his best; As Variedades de Proteu (1737); Precipicio de Faetonte (posthumous).
The latest view of Antonio José (See Bell’s Portuguese Literature, pages 282-284); whom Southey considered “the best of their drama writers,” is that his plays would in all likelihood have received little “attention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had it not been for the tragedy of the author’s life.” This probably overstates the case against O Judeu, but it indicates an important non-literary reason for his popularity.
CHAPTER III
PERIOD OF AUTONOMOUS DEVELOPMENT (1750-1830)
Stirrings of Revolt—The Inconfidencia—Two Epics: Uraguay and Caramurú—The Lyrists of Minas Geraes: Claudio da Costa, Gonzaga, Alvarenga Peixoto, Silva Alvarenga—Minor figures—Political Satire—Early Nineteenth Century—José Bonifacio de Andrade e Silva.