V
Later developments in Brazil, as in Spanish America, reveal no definite tendencies that may be grouped under any particular “ism.” Rampant individualism precludes the schools of literary memory. Aranha’s Chanaan directed attention to the Brazilian melting-pot. One result of the recent war has been, in Brazil, to strengthen the national spirit, and in São Paulo, particularly, a young group headed by the industrious Monteiro Lobato seems to show a partial return to regionalism. The directing inspiration for the more clearly regionalistic art came perhaps from Euclydes da Cunha, whose Sertões brought so poignant a realization that Brazil lived in the interior as well as on the coast. As a corollary of the aspiration toward national intellectual autonomy, there is setting in a reaction against France, in favour of national, even local types and themes. The literary product, if not at its highest, is upon a respectable level. The novel is ably represented by Coelho Netto,[15] while the drama, not so fortunate, plods along a routine path with such purveyors as Claudio de Souza in the lead. To the São Paulo group I look for the early emergence of some worth-while talents,—young men of culture and vision who will bring to Brazil not merely the plethora of poesy that gluts her eyes and ears, but a firm grasp upon the prose that is the other half of life. Romero, years ago, said that what Brazil needed more than anything else was a regimen for its daily life. Only yesterday, Lobato, in his Problema Vital, studied the problem of what he calls the ailment of an entire country, seeking first of all to convince the nation that it was ill. And his initial prescription, like that of Romero, calls for a national hygiene. To this purpose he subordinates his activities as littérateur.
Thus conditions, though not so bad as when Verissimo studied his problem of the Brazilian writer some thirty years ago, are still analagous. He found the literature of his country, at that time, an unoriginal, pupil-literature, often misunderstanding its masters, yet endowed with certain undisputed points of originality. “The Brazilian writer, in his vast majority of cases, does not learn to write; he learns while writing. And it is doubtless useful to him as well as to our letters that the critic, at times, should turn instructor. The lack of a public interested in literary life, and capable of intelligent choice among works and authors, makes this secondary function of criticism even more necessary and serviceable.…”
Brazilian literature, as is highly evident, is not one of the major divisions of world letters. It lacks continuity, it is too largely derivative, too poor in masterpieces. Yet today, more at least than when Wolf wrote so enthusiastically in 1863, it is true that “Brazilian literature may justly claim consideration as being really national; in this quality it has its place assigned in the ensemble of the literatures of the civilized world; finally, and above all in its most recent period, it has developed in all directions, and has produced in the principal genres works worthy the attention of all friends of letters.”
The finest fruits of a national literature are the salient personalities who cross all frontiers and achieve such a measure of universality as is attainable in this best and worst of all possible worlds. As the region nurtures the national letters, so the national nurtures the international. And this internationality is but the most expansive phase of the individual in whom all art begins and in whom all art seeks its goal. For art begins and ends in the individual. A few such personalities Brazil has already produced, notably in the criticism of José Verissimo, the prose of Machado de Assis, the intellectuality of Oliveira Lima, the poetry of Olavo Bilac. They are valuable contributions to Goethe’s idea of a Weltliteratur. Such as they, rather than a roster of “isms,” “ists” and “ologies,” justify the study of the milieu and the tradition that helped to produce them. But precisely because they triumph over the milieu, because they shape it rather than are shaped by it, do they rise above the academic confines into that small library whose shelves know only one classification: significant personality.