Isaac Goldberg - Brazilian Literature

Brazil is preparing to commemorate worthily the centenary of her independence. The world outside is bidden to the feast, and to beautiful Rio de Janeiro many nations are sending their envoys with felicitations and gifts. Our own country, the United States of North America, is mindful of her duty and her privilege on this occasion, and accredited delegates are bearing her congratulations to her ever-faithful associate in the promoting of peace and fraternity throughout the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps it will not be taken amiss, if the scholar and critic add his testimonial to the expressions of good-will coming from all sides. What more fitting than that a scholar and critic of our United States should join the chorus and voice an honest appreciation of Brazilian letters?

Dr. Goldberg, who has already paid ample tribute to the literary output of Spanish-speaking America, gives proof now of the catholicity of his interest by surveying the whole course of literature in Portuguese-speaking America, the vast land of Brazil, and by analyzing the compositions of certain outstanding figures among the writers of the region. He knows at first hand the authors and the works that he treats; he knows what native and foreign critics have to say about them; he expresses unreservedly his own opinion about them. He gives praise where praise is due, and, in kindly fashion, he puts stricture upon that which calls for stricture. On the whole, his pages contain more laudation than censure; and this is as it should be, for very many of the literary achievements of colonial, imperial and republican Brazil are unquestionably of lasting worth. His laudation, moreover, is uttered without any tinge of that condescension which European critics deem it incumbent upon them to manifest when they pass judgment on the culture of North or South America.

To his fellow-citizens of the United States of North America Dr. Goldberg now presents an opportunity of viewing aspects of the soul of a noble Southern land, their constant ally. Brazil’s political and commercial importance they know well, but her literary significance has not been so evident to them. If, reading his words, they conceive respect for Brazilian effort and accomplishment in the world of letters, his reward will be truly great; and that reward is truly deserved.

The plans for this book, as well as for my Studies in Spanish-American Literature , were conceived during the years 1910-1912 while I was engaged in research work under Professor J. D. M. Ford, head of the Department of Romance Languages, Harvard University. It was not merely that text-books were lacking in both the Spanish-American and the Brazilian fields, for my interest is centred upon aesthetic pleasure rather than upon the depersonalized transmission of facts. A yawning gap of ignorance separated us then from the America that does not speak English, nor was the ignorance all on our side. Commercial opportunities, more than cultural curiosity, served to impart an impetus to the study of Spanish and soon we were reading fiction not only from Spain but from Spanish America. In so far as the mercantile spirit was responsible for this broader literary interest, it performed an undoubted service to art by widening our horizons, but one should be wary about overestimating the permanent gain. Unfortunately, the phonographic iteration of diplomatic platitudes brings continents no nearer, unless it be for the mad purposes of war. If, then, we are, as a people, quite as far as ever from Spanish America, what shall we say of our spiritual distance from the United States of Brazil?

I may be pardoned if I indicate, for example, that the language of Brazil is not Spanish, but Portuguese. And should this simple fact come as a surprise to any reader, let him not be unduly overwhelmed, for he errs in distinguished company. Thus, Gustave Le Bon, – he of crowd-psychology fame, speaks of South America in his Lois psychologiques des peuples (p. 131, 12th ed., 1916) as being predominantly of Spanish origin, divided into numerous republics, of which the Brazilian is one. As late as 1899, Vacher de Lapouge, in his book on L’Aryen could describe Brazil as a “vast negro state returning to a state of savagery,” important, like Mexico, only in a numerical way. 1 1 I take these examples from Senhor De Carvalho. Students of Brazilian letters will not find it difficult to multiply instances from their personal experience with educated friends. A small return, it seems, for Brazil’s intellectual adherence to France, yet indicative of inexcusable ignorance not only of Brazil, but of Mexico, where the cultural life, though concentrated, is intense and productive of results that would repay examination. By 1899 Brazil had already produced a fairly respectable array of original creative writers, while Mexican poetry was adding to the wealth of new Spanish verse. Where specialists stray, then, who shall guide the innocent layman? Nor are the Brazilians without their case against the English, as we shall presently note in the discussion of a mooted section of Buckle’s History of Civilization in England , though they owe to more than one earlier Englishman a history of their land. Robert Southey, for notable example, after the collapse of the “pantisocratic” plans harboured by him and Coleridge, found the time to write a History of Brazil that is read today only somewhat less frequently than his poetry.

The history of Brazil, like Cæsar’s unforgettable Gaul, is generally divided into three parts: (1) from the discovery by the Portuguese in 1500 to the Independence in 1822; (2) the independent monarchy, which lasted until 1889; (3) the republic, 1889 to the present. This, then, is the centenary year of Brazilian independence and, as no English book has yet sought to trace the literary history of the nation, the occasion seems propitious for such a modest introductory one as this. The fuller volume which it precedes I hope to have ready in a few years, as a contribution to the study of the creative imagination on this side of the Atlantic.

If, in any part, I seem dogmatic, I can but plead the exigencies of space, which permit of little analytic discussion. I am no believer in clear-cut formulæ as applied to art; where facts are presented, they are given as succinctly as possible, while opinions are meant to be suggestive rather than – ugly word! – definitive. The first part of the book is devoted to an outline history of Brazilian literature; this is meant to provide the background for a proper appreciation of the representative figures treated in the second part. Since the first part deals largely with facts, I have aimed to give the reader not solely a personal view – which belongs more properly among the essays of the second – but also a digest of the few authorities that have treated the subject. It thus forms a reasonably adequate introduction to the deeper study of Brazilian literature that may some day interest a portion of our student body, and will, moreover, be of aid in rounding out the sharp corners of a general knowledge of letters. More important still, it should help to an appreciation of the Brazilian national personality. As to the representative figures chosen for more individual treatment, through one trait or another they emerge from the background as Brazil’s contributions to something more than an exclusively national interest, or else afford striking opportunity for studying phases of the national mind.

Though none of the text as it here appears has been printed elsewhere, some of the matter has formed the substance of articles that have been published, between 1914 and the present, in the Boston Evening Transcript , the Christian Science Monitor , the Literary Review of the New York Evening Post , the New York Times , the Bookman , the Stratford Journal and other periodicals, to the management and editors of which I am indebted not only for permission to reprint, but for their readiness to accept such exotic material. For bibliographical aid and other favours I am also thankful to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Carlos de Laet, President; to Manoel de Oliveira Lima, of the Brazilian Academy; Gilberto Freyre; C. J. Babcock, Librarian of the Columbus Memorial Library, Washington, D. C.; C. K. Jones; Prof. H. R. Lang, Yale; Dr. A. C. Potter and the Harvard Library; to Sr. Helio Lobo, Consul General in New York for Brazil; and to my friend Professor J. D. M. Ford of Harvard. For the index I am indebted to my wife.