Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a
Brazilian poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
,
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...
,
musicologist
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
,
art historian
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
and
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
, and
photographer
A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographe ...
. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry, ''
Paulicéia Desvairada
''Paulicéia Desvairada'' (from the Portuguese, literally "''Frantic São Paulo''", often translated as "''Hallucinated City''") is a collection of poems by Mário de Andrade, published in 1922. It was Andrade's second poetry collection, and his ...
'' (''Hallucinated City''), published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern
Brazilian literature
Brazilian literature is the literature written in the Portuguese language by Brazilians or in Brazil, including works written prior to the country's independence in 1822. Throughout its early years, literature from Brazil followed the literary t ...
, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of
ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
Andrade was a central figure in the
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
movement of
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
for twenty years. Trained as a musician and best known as a poet and novelist, Andrade was personally involved in virtually every
discipline
Discipline refers to rule following behavior, to regulate, order, control and authority. It may also refer to punishment. Discipline is used to create habits, routines, and automatic mechanisms such as blind obedience. It may be inflicted on ot ...
that was connected with São Paulo modernism. His photography and essays on a wide variety of subjects, from history to literature and music, were widely published. He was the driving force behind the
Week of Modern Art
The Modern Art Week ( pt, Semana de Arte Moderna) was an arts festival in São Paulo, Brazil, that ran from February 10 to February 17, 1922. Historically, the Week marked the start of Brazilian Modernism; though a number of individual Brazilian ...
, the 1922 event that reshaped both literature and the
visual arts
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...
in Brazil, and a member of the avant-garde "Group of Five." The ideas behind the Week were further explored in the preface to his poetry collection ''Pauliceia Desvairada'', and in the poems themselves.
After working as a music professor and newspaper columnist he published his great
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
, ''
Macunaíma'', in 1928. Work on Brazilian folk music, poetry, and other concerns followed unevenly, often interrupted by Andrade's shifting relationship with the Brazilian government. At the end of his life, he became the founding director of São Paulo's Department of Culture, formalizing a role he had long held as a catalyst of the city's—and the nation's—entry into artistic modernity.
Early life
Andrade was born in São Paulo and lived there virtually all of his life. As a child, he was a piano
prodigy
Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to:
* Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer
** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess
Arts, entertainment, and ...
, and he later studied at the
Music and Drama Conservatory of São Paulo. His formal education was solely in music, but at the same time, as Albert T. Luper records, he pursued persistent and solitary studies in
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, and particularly
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
. Andrade had a solid command of French, and read
Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he start ...
and the major
Symbolists. Although he wrote poetry throughout his musical education, he did not think to do so professionally until the career as a professional pianist to which he aspired was no longer an option.
In 1913, his 14-year-old brother Renato died suddenly during a
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
game; Andrade left the Conservatory to stay at
Araraquara
Araraquara ( or ) is a city in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo in Brazil. The population is 250.314 (2022 est.) in an area of . It is also known as "the abode of the sun," because of its impressive sunset and because of its hot atmosphe ...
, where his family had a farm. When he returned, his piano playing was afflicted intermittently by trembling of his hands. Although he ultimately did receive a degree in piano, he gave no concerts and began studying
singing
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
and
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
with an eye toward becoming a professor of music. At the same time, he began writing more seriously. In 1917, the year of his graduation, he published his first book of poems, ''Há uma Gota de Sangue em Cada Poema'' (''There is a drop of blood in each poem''), under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
Mário Sobral. The book contains hints of Andrade's growing sense of a distinctive Brazilian identity, but it does so within the context of a poetry that (like most Brazilian poetry of the period) is strongly indebted to earlier European—particularly
French—literature.
His first book does not seem to have had an enormous impact, and Andrade broadened the scope of his writing. He left São Paulo for the countryside, and began an activity that would continue for the rest of his life: the meticulous documentation of the history, people, culture, and particularly music of the Brazilian interior, both in the state of São Paulo and in the wilder areas to the northeast. He published essays in São Paulo magazines, accompanied occasionally by his own photographs, but primarily he accumulated massive amounts of information about Brazilian life and
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
. Between these trips, Andrade taught piano at the Conservatory, and became one of its professors in 1921.
The Week of Modern Art
While these folklore-gathering trips were going on, Andrade developed a group of friends among young artists and writers in São Paulo, who, like him, were aware of the growing modernist movement in Europe. Several of them were later known as the ''Grupo dos Cinco'' (the Group of Five): Andrade, poets
Oswald de Andrade
José Oswald de Souza Andrade (January 11, 1890 – October 22, 1954) was a Brazilian poet, novelist and cultural critic. He was born, spent most of his life and died in São Paulo.
Andrade was one of the founders of Brazilian modernism and a m ...
(no relation) and
Menotti del Picchia
Paulo Menotti Del Picchia (São Paulo, March 20, 1892 – São Paulo, August 23, 1988) was a Brazilian poet, journalist, and painter. He is associated with the Generation of 1922, the first generation of Brazilian modernism artists.
Del Picc ...
, and artists
Tarsila do Amaral
Tarsila de Aguiar do Amaral (; 1 September 1886 – 17 January 1973) was a Brazilian painter, draftswoman, and translator. She is considered one of the leading Latin American modernist artists, and is regarded as the painter who best achieved Bra ...
and
Anita Malfatti
Anita Catarina Malfatti (December 2, 1889 – November 6, 1964) is heralded as the first Brazilian artist to introduce European and American forms of Modernism to Brazil. Her solo exhibition in Sao Paulo, from 1917–1918, was controversial ...
. Malfatti had been to Europe before
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and introduced São Paulo to
expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
.
[Amaral and Hastings, 14.] Jack E. Tomlins, the translator of Andrade's second book, describes in his introduction a particularly crucial event in the development of Andrade's modernist philosophy. In 1920, he had recently met the modernist sculptor
Victor Brecheret
Victor Brecheret, born ''Vittorio Breheret'' (December 15, 1894 – December 17, 1955), was an Italian-Brazilian sculptor. He lived most of his life in São Paulo, except for his studies in Paris in his early twenties. Brecheret's work combin ...
, and bought a sculpture from him entitled "Bust of Christ," which depicted Christ as a Brazilian with braided hair. His family (apparently to his surprise) was shocked and furious. Andrade retreated to his room alone, and later recalled, in a lecture translated by Tomlins, that—still "delirious"—he went out onto his balcony and "looked down at the square below without actually seeing it."
Retaining that title (''Paulicéia Desvairada'', in Portuguese), Andrade worked on the book for the next two years. He very quickly produced a "barbaric canticle", as he called it in the same lecture, and then gradually edited it down to half its original size.
These poems were entirely different from his earlier formal and abstract work. The lines of verse vary greatly in length and in
syntactical structure, consisting primarily of impressionistic and fragmented descriptions interspersed with seemingly overheard, disconnected bits of speech in São Paulo
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
.
[Foster, 94–95.] The speaker of the poems often seems overwhelmed by the maze of dialogue that constantly interrupts him, as in "Colloque Sentimental":
After the poems were completed, Andrade wrote what he called an "Extremely Interesting Preface", in an attempt to explain in hindsight the poems' theoretical context (though Bruce Dean Willis has suggested that the theories of the preface have more to do with his later work than with ''Paulicéia''). The preface is self-deprecating ("This preface—although interesting—useless") but ambitious, presenting a theory not just of poetry but of the
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...
of language, in order to explain the innovations of his new poems. Andrade explains their tangle of language in musical terms:
He makes a distinction, however, between language and music, in that "words are not fused like notes; rather they are shuffled together, and they become incomprehensible."
However, as Willis has pointed out, there is a pessimism to the preface; in one of its key passages, it compares poetry to the submerged riches of
El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
, which can never be recovered.
In 1922, while preparing ''Paulicéia Desvairada'' for publication, Andrade collaborated with Malfatti and Oswald de Andrade in creating a single event that would introduce their work to the wider public: the ''Semana de Arte Moderna'' (
Week of Modern Art
The Modern Art Week ( pt, Semana de Arte Moderna) was an arts festival in São Paulo, Brazil, that ran from February 10 to February 17, 1922. Historically, the Week marked the start of Brazilian Modernism; though a number of individual Brazilian ...
).
The ''Semana'' included exhibitions of paintings by Malfatti and other artists, readings, and lectures on art, music, and literature. Andrade was the chief organizer and the central figure in the event, which was greeted with skepticism but was well-attended. He gave lectures on both the principles of modernism and his work in Brazilian folk music, and read his "Extremely Interesting Preface." As the climactic event of the ''Semana'', he read from ''Paulicéia Desvairada''. The poems' use of
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French ''vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Definit ...
and
colloquial
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...
São Paulo expressions, though related to European modernist poems of the same period, were entirely new to Brazilians.
The reading was accompanied by persistent jeers, but Andrade persevered, and later discovered that a large part of the audience found it transformative. It has been cited frequently as the seminal event in modern Brazilian literature.
The Group of Five continued working together in the 1920s, during which their reputations solidified and hostility to their work gradually diminished, but eventually the group split apart; Andrade and Oswald de Andrade had a serious (and public) falling-out in 1929.
New groups were formed out of the splinters of the original, and in the end many different modernist movements could trace their origins to the Week of Modern Art.
"The apprentice tourist"
Throughout the 1920s Andrade continued traveling in Brazil, studying the culture and folklore of the interior. He began to formulate a sophisticated theory of the social dimensions of
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
, which is at once nationalistic and deeply personal. Andrade's explicit subject was the relationship between "artistic" music and the music of the street and countryside, including both
Afro-Brazilian
Afro-Brazilians ( pt, afro-brasileiros; ) are Brazilians who have predominantly African ancestry (see "Black people#Brazil, preto"). Most members of another group of people, Pardo Brazilians, multiracial Brazilians or ''pardos'', may also have a ...
and
Amerindian
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...
styles. The work was controversial for its formal discussions of dance music and folk music; those controversies were compounded by Andrade's style, which was at once poetic (Luper calls it "
Joycean A text is deemed Joycean when it is reminiscent of the writings of James Joyce, particularly '' Ulysses'' or ''Finnegans Wake''. Joycean fiction exhibits a high degree of verbal play, usually within the framework of stream of consciousness. Works ...
") and polemical.
His travels through Brazil became more than just research trips; in 1927, he started writing a
travelogue
Travelogue may refer to:
Genres
* Travel literature, a record of the experiences of an author travelling
* Travel documentary
A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or t ...
called "The apprentice tourist" for the newspaper ''O Diario Nacional''. The column served as an introduction for cosmopolites to indigenous Brazil. At the same time, it served as an advertisement for Andrade's own work. A number of Andrade's photographs were published alongside the column, showing the landscape and people. Occasionally, Andrade himself would appear in them, usually filtered ''through'' the landscape, as in the self-portrait-as-shadow on this page. His photographs thus served to further his modernist project and his own work at the same time as their function in recording folklore.
Though Andrade continued taking photographs throughout his career, these images from the 20s comprise the bulk of his notable work, and the 1927 series in particular. He was particularly interested in the capacity of photographs to capture or restate the past, a power he saw as highly personal. In the late 1930s, he wrote:
In many of the images, figures are shadowed, blurred, or otherwise nearly invisible, a form of portraiture that for Andrade became a kind of modernist
sublime.
''Macunaíma''
![Casa Mario de Andrade 1 crop and edit](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Casa_Mario_de_Andrade_1_crop_and_edit.JPG)
At the same time, Andrade was developing an extensive familiarity with the dialects and cultures of large parts of Brazil. He started to apply to prose fiction the speech-patterned technique he had developed in writing the poems of ''Hallucinated city''. He wrote two novels during this period using these techniques: the first, ''Love, Intransitive Verb,'' was largely a formal experiment.; the second, written shortly after and published in 1928, was ''Macunaíma,'' a novel about a man ("The hero without a character" is the subtitle of the novel) from an
indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
tribe who comes to São Paulo, learns its languages—both of them, the novel says:
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Brazilian—and returns. The style of the novel is composite, mixing vivid descriptions of both jungle and city with abrupt turns toward
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
, the style that would later be called
magical realism
Magical is the adjective for magic. It may also refer to:
* Magical (horse) (foaled 2015), Irish Thoroughbred racehorse
* "Magical" (song), released in 1985 by John Parr
* '' Magical: Disney's New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations'', ...
. Linguistically, too, the novel is composite; as the rural hero comes into contact with his urban environment, the novel reflects the meeting of languages. Relying heavily on the
primitivism
Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate a "primitive" experience. It is also defined as a philosophical doctrine that considers "primitive" peoples as nobler than civilized peoples and was an o ...
that Andrade learned from the European modernists, the novel lingers over possible indigenous cannibalism even as it explores Macunaíma's immersion in urban life. Critic Kimberle S. López has argued that cannibalism is the novel's driving thematic force: the eating of cultures by other cultures.
Formally, ''Macunaíma'' is an ecstatic blend of dialects and of the urban and rural rhythms that Andrade was collecting in his research. It contains an entirely new style of prose—deeply musical, frankly poetic, and full of gods and almost-gods, yet containing considerable narrative momentum. At the same time, the novel as a whole is pessimistic. It ends with Macunaíma's willful destruction of his own village; despite the euphoria of the collision, the meeting of cultures the novel documents is inevitably catastrophic. As Severino João Albuquerque has demonstrated, the novel presents "construction and destruction" as inseparable. It is a novel of both power (Macunaíma has all kinds of strange powers) and
alienation.
[Albuquerque 67.]
Even as ''Macunaíma'' changed the nature of Brazilian literature in an instant—Albuquerque calls it "the cornerstone text of Brazilian Modernism"—the inner conflict in the novel was a strong part of its influence.
''Modernismo'', as Andrade depicted it, was formally tied to the innovations of recent European literature and based on the productive meeting of cultural forces in Brazil's diverse population; but it was fiercely
nationalistic
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: T ...
, based in large part on distinguishing Brazil's culture from the world and on documenting the damage caused by the lingering effects of colonial rule. At the same time, the complex inner life of its hero suggests themes little explored in earlier Brazilian literature, which critics have taken to refer back to Andrade himself. While ''Macunaíma'' is not autobiographical in the strict sense, it clearly reflects and refracts Andrade's own life. Andrade was a
mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
; his parents were landowners but were in no sense a part of Brazil's
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
pseudo-aristocracy. Some critics have paralleled Andrade's race and family background to the interaction between categories of his character Macunaíma. Macunaíma's body itself is a composite: his skin is darker than that of his fellow tribesmen, and at one point in the novel, he has an adult's body and a child's head. He himself is a wanderer, never belonging to any one place.
Other critics have argued for similar analogues between Andrade's
sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
and Macunaíma's complex status.
[See Green, section "Miss São Paulo."] Though Andrade was not openly
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
, and there is no direct evidence of his sexual practices, many of Andrade's friends have reported after his death that he was clearly interested in men (the subject is only reluctantly discussed in Brazil). It was over a pseudonymous accusation of
effeminacy
Effeminacy is the embodiment of traits and/or expressions in those who are not of the female sex (e.g. boys and men) that are often associated with what is generally perceived to be feminine behaviours, mannerisms, styles, or gender roles, rathe ...
that Andrade broke with Oswald de Andrade in 1929.
Macunaíma prefers women, but his constant state of belonging and not belonging is associated with sex. The character is sexually precocious, starting his romantic adventures at the age of six, and his particular form of eroticism seems always to lead to destruction of one kind or another.
Inevitably, ''Macunaíma's'' polemicism and sheer strangeness have become less obvious as it has grown ensconced in mainstream Brazilian culture and education. Once regarded by academic critics as an awkwardly constructed work of more historical than literary importance, the novel has come to be recognized as a modernist masterpiece whose difficulties are part of its
aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
. Andrade is a national cultural icon; his face has appeared on the Brazilian currency. A film of ''
Macunaíma'' was made in 1969, by Brazilian director
Joaquim Pedro de Andrade
Joaquim Pedro de Andrade (May 25, 1932 – September 10, 1988) was a Brazilian film director and screenwriter. He was a member of the Cinema Novo movement in Brazil. Andrade is best known for his 1969 film ''Macunaíma (film), Macunaíma'', ba ...
, updating Andrade's story to the 1960s and shifting it to
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
; the film was rereleased internationally in 2009.
Late life and musical research
![Cédula 500000 Cruzeiros Mário de Andrade AnvRev](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/C%C3%A9dula_500000_Cruzeiros_M%C3%A1rio_de_Andrade_AnvRev.jpg)
Andrade was not directly affected by the Revolution of 1930, in which
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...
seized power and became
dictator
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times ...
, but he belonged to the landed class the Revolution was designed to displace, and his employment prospects declined under the Vargas regime. He was able to remain at the Conservatory, where he was now Chair of History of Music and Aesthetics. With this title he became a de facto national authority on the history of music, and his research turned from the personal bent of his 1920s work to
textbook
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textboo ...
s and chronologies. He continued to document rural folk music, and during the 1930s made an enormous collection of
recordings
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, r ...
of the songs and other forms of music of the interior. The recordings were exhaustive, with a selection based on comprehensiveness rather than an aesthetic judgment, and including context, related folktalkes, and other non-musical sound.
[Luper 47.] Andrade's techniques were influential in the development of
ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
in Brazil and predate similar work done elsewhere, including the well-known recordings of
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...
. He is credited with coining the word "popularesque," which he defined as imitations of Brazilian folk music by erudite urban musicians ("erudite" is generally a deprecation in Andrade's vocabulary). The word continues to have currency in discussion of Brazilian music as both a scholarly and nationalist category.
In 1935, during an unstable period in Vargas's government, Andrade and writer and
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
Paulo Duarte, who had for many years desired to promote cultural research and activity in the city through a municipal agency, were able to create a unified São Paulo Department of Culture (''Departamento de Cultura e Recreação da Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo''). Andrade was named founding director. The Department of Culture had a broad purview, overseeing cultural and demographic research, the construction of parks and playgrounds, and a considerable publishing wing. Andrade approached the position with characteristic ambition, using it to expand his work in folklore and folk music while organizing myriad performances, lectures, and expositions. He moved his collection of recordings to the Department, and expanding and enhancing it became one of the Department's chief functions, overseen by Andrade's former student, Oneyda Alvarenga. The collection, called the ''Discoteca Municipal,'' was "probably the largest and best-organized in the entire
hemisphere
Hemisphere refers to:
* A half of a sphere
As half of the Earth
* A hemisphere of Earth
** Northern Hemisphere
** Southern Hemisphere
** Eastern Hemisphere
** Western Hemisphere
** Land and water hemispheres
* A half of the (geocentric) celes ...
."
At the same time, Andrade was refining his theory of music. He attempted to pull together his research into a general theory. Concerned as always with ''Modernismo's'' need to break from the past, he formulated a distinction between the classical music of 18th- and 19th-century Europe, and what he called the music of the future, which would be based simultaneously on modernist breakdowns of musical form and on an understanding of folk and
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
. The music of the past, he said, was conceived in terms of space: whether
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
, with its multiple voices arranged in vertical alignment, or the
symphonic forms, in which the dominant voice is typically projected on top of a complex accompaniment. Future music would be arranged in time rather than space: "moment by moment" (in Luper's translation). This temporal music would be inspired not by "contemplative remembrance", but by the deep longing or desire expressed by the Portuguese word ''
saudade
''Saudade'' (, , , ; plural ''saudades'') is an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for something that one loves despite it not necessarily being real. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of long ...
''.
Through his position at the Department of Culture in this period, he was able to assist
Dina Lévi-Strauss Dina Dreyfus (French: ʁɛˈfys, also known as Dina Levi-Strauss (French: evi stʁos 1 February 1911, Milan – 25 February 1999, Paris), was a French ethnologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and philosopher, who conducted cultural research in ...
and her husband,
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...
with films they were making based on field research in
Mato Grosso
Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 1.9% of the Brazilian GDP.
Neighboring ...
and
Rondônia
Rondônia () is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northern subdivision of the country (central-western part). To the west is a short border with the state of Acre, to the north is the state of Amazonas, in the east is Mato Grosso, ...
.
Andrade's position at the Department of Culture was abruptly revoked in 1937, when Vargas returned to power and Duarte was exiled. In 1938 Andrade moved to
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
to take up a post at the
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro or University of Brazil (UFRJ; pt, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro or ') is a public research university located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the largest federal university in the ...
. While there he directed the Congresso da Língua Nacional Cantada (Congress of National Musical Language), a major folklore and folk music conference. He returned to São Paulo in 1941, where he worked on a collected edition of his poetry.
Andrade's final project was a long poem called "Meditação Sôbre o Tietê." The work is dense and difficult, and was dismissed by its early critics as "without meaning", although recent work on it has been more enthusiastic. One critic, David T Haberly, has compared it favorably to
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism.
In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...
's ''
Paterson,'' a dense but influential unfinished
epic using composite construction. Like ''Paterson'', it is a poem about a city; the "Meditação" is centered on the
Tietê River
The Tietê River (Portuguese, Rio Tietê, ) is a Brazilian river in the state of São Paulo.
The name Tietê was registered for the first time on a map published in 1748 by d’Anville. The name signifies "The truthful river", or "truthful wa ...
, which flows through São Paulo. The poem is simultaneously a summation of Andrade's career, commenting on poems written long before, and a love poem addressed to the river and to the city itself. In both cases, the poem hints at a larger context: it compares the river to the
Tagus
The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see #Name, below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections ...
in
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
and the
Seine
)
, mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur
, mouth_coordinates =
, mouth_elevation =
, progression =
, river_system = Seine basin
, basin_size =
, tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle
, tributarie ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, as if claiming an international position for Andrade as well. At the same time, the poem associates both Andrade's voice and the river with "banzeiro," a word from the Afro-Brazilian musical tradition: music that can unite man and river. The poem is the definitive and final statement of Andrade's ambition and his nationalism.
Andrade died at his home in São Paulo of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
on February 25, 1945, at the age of 51. Because of his tenuous relationship with the Vargas regime, the initial official reaction to his career was muted. However, the publication of his ''Complete Poems'' in 1955 (the year after Vargas's death) signalled the start of Andrade's canonization as one of the cultural heroes of Brazil. On February 15, 1960, the municipal library of São Paulo was renamed ''
Biblioteca Mário de Andrade.''
Bibliography of English translations
*''Hallucinated City'' (''
Paulicéia Desvairada
''Paulicéia Desvairada'' (from the Portuguese, literally "''Frantic São Paulo''", often translated as "''Hallucinated City''") is a collection of poems by Mário de Andrade, published in 1922. It was Andrade's second poetry collection, and his ...
'') (1922). Translated by Jack E. Tomlins. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 1968.
*''Fraulein'' (''Amar, Verbo Intransitivo'') (1927). Translated by Margaret Richardson Hollingsworth. New York: Macaulay, 1933.
*''To Love, Intransitive Verb'' (''Amar, Verbo Intransitivo'') (2018). Translated by Ana Lessa-Schmidt. Hanover, CT: New London Librarium, 2018.
*''Popular Music and Song in Brazil'' (''Ensaio sobre Música Brasileira'') (1928). Translated by Luiz Victor Le Cocq D'Oliveira. Sponsored by the Ministry of State for Foreign Affairs of Brazil: Division of Intellectual Cooperation. Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1943.
*''
Macunaíma'' (1928). Translated by E. A. Goodland (New York: Random House, 1984); later trans. Katrina Dodson (New Directions, forthcoming)
*''Brazilian Sculpture: An Identity in Profile''/''Escultura Brasileira: Perfil de uma Identidate.'' Catalog of exhibition in English and Portuguese. Includes text by Mário de Andrade and others. Edited by Élcior Ferreira de Santana Filho. São Paulo, Brazil: Associação dos Amigos da Pinateca, 1997.
Footnotes
References
*Albuquerque, Severino João. "Construction and Destruction in ''Macunaíma''." ''Hispania'' 70, 1 (1987), 67–72.
*Amaral, Aracy and Kim Mrazek Hastings. "Stages in the Formation of Brazil's Cultural Profile." ''Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts'' 21 (1995), 8–25.
*Filho, João Freire and Micael Herschmann. "Debatable Tastes: Rethinking Hierarchical Distinctions in Brazilian Music." ''Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies'' 12, 3 (2003), 347–58.
*Foster, David, "Some Formal Types in the Poetry of Mário de Andrade," ''Luso-Brazilian Review'' 2,2 (1965), 75–95.
*Gabara, Esther. "Facing Brazil: The Problem of Portraiture and the Modernist Sublime." ''CR: The New Centennial Review'' 4,2 (2004), 33–76.
*Gouveia, Saulo. "Private Patronage in Early Brazilian Modernism: Xenophobia and Internal Colonization Coded in Mário de Andrade's Noturno de Belo Horizonte.'" ''Luso-Brazilian Review'' 46,2 (2009), 90–112.
*Green, James N. "Challenging National Heroes and Myths: Male Homosexuality and Brazilian History." ''Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe'' 12, 1 (2001).
Online
*Haberly, David T. "The Depths of the River: Mário de Andrade's ''Meditação Sôbre o Tietê''." ''Hispania'' 72,2 (1989), 277–282.
*Hamilton-Tyrell, Sarah, "Mário de Andrade, Mentor: Modernism and Musical Aesthetics in Brazil, 1920–1945," ''Musical Quarterly'' 88,1 (2005), 7–34.
*Lokensgard, Mark. "Inventing the Modern Brazilian Short Story: Mário de Andrade's Literary Lobbying." ''Luso-Brazilian Review'' 42,1 (2005), 136–153.
*López, Kimberle S. "''Modernismo'' and the Ambivalence of the Postcolonial Experience: Cannibalism, Primitivism, and Exoticism in Mário de Andrade's ''Macunaíma''". ''Luso-Brazilian Review'' 35, 1 (1998), 25–38.
*Luper, Albert T. "The Musical Thought of Mário de Andrade (1893–1945)." ''Anuario'' 1 (1965), 41–54.
*Nunes, Maria Luisa. "Mário de Andrade in 'Paradise'." ''Modern Language Studies'' 22,3 (1992), 70–75.
*Perrone, Charles A. "Performing São Paulo: Vanguard Representations of a Brazilian Cosmopolis." ''Latin American Music Review'' 22, 1 (2002), 60–78.
*Suárez, José I., and Tomlins, Jack E., ''Mário de Andrade: The Creative Works'' (Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Presses, 2000).
*Willis, Bruce Dean. "Necessary Losses: Purity and Solidarity in Mário de Andrade's Dockside Poetics." ''Hispania'' 81, 2 (1998), 261–268.
External links
Biography from releituras.com(in Portuguese).
Official site, Mário de Andrade Library, São Paulo*
ttp://www.usinadeletras.com.br/exibelotexto.php?cod=56519&cat=Poesias&vinda=S Barra Funda, S. Paulo*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrade, Mario De
1893 births
1945 deaths
Brazilian people of Portuguese descent
Brazilian male poets
Brazilian male short story writers
Brazilian ethnomusicologists
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro faculty
Magic realism writers
Brazilian LGBT poets
20th-century Brazilian poets
20th-century Brazilian short story writers
20th-century Brazilian male writers
20th-century musicologists
20th-century LGBT people