Carlos Drummond de Andrade (October 31, 1902 -
August 17, 1987) was perhaps the most influential
Brazilian poet of the 20th century. He has become something of a national poet; his poem "Canção Amiga" ("Friendly Song") was
printed on the 50 cruzados note.
Drummond was born in Itabira, a mining village in Minas
Gerais in southeastern Brazil. His parents were farmers of Portuguese ancestry (and remote Scottish ancestry). He went to
a school of pharmacy in Belo Horizonte, but never
worked as a pharmacist after graduation. He worked in government service for most of his life, eventually becoming director of
history for the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service of Brazil.
Though his earliest poems are formal and satirical, Drummond quickly adopted the new forms of Brazilian modernism that were
evolving in the 1920s, incited by the work of Mário de
Andrade (to whom he was not related). He adopted a Whitmanian free verse, mingling speech fluent in elegance and truth about the surrounding, many times quotidian, world,
with a fluidity of thought.
One of Drummond's best-known poems is his hymn to an ordinary man, "José." It is a poem of desolation:
- Key in hand,
- you want to open the door -
- there is no door. . .
The work of Carlos Drummond is generally divided into several segments, which appear very markedly in each of his books. But
this is somewhat misleading, since even in the midst of his everyday poems or his socialist, politicized poems,
there appear creations which can be easily incorporated into his later metaphysical canon, and none of these styles
is completely free of the others. There is surely much metaphysical content in even his most rancid political poems.
The most prominent of these later metaphysical poems is A Máquina do Mundo (The Machine of the World). The poem deals
with an anti-Faust referred to in the first person, who receives the visit of the
aforementioned Machine, which stands for all possible knowledge, and the sum of the answers for all the questions which afflict
men; in highly dramatic and baroque versification the poem develops only for the anonymous subject to decline the offer of
endless knowledge and proceed his gloomy path in the solitary road. It takes the renaissance allegory of the Machine of the World
from Portugal's most esteemed poet, Luís de Camões,
more precisely, from a canto at the end of his epic masterpiece Os Lusíadas. There
are also hints from Dante and the form is adapted from T.
S. Eliot's dantesque passage in "Little Gidding."
Drummond is a favorite of American poets, a number of whom, including Mark Strand and
Lloyd Schwartz, have translated him. Later writers and critics have sometimes credited
his relationship with Elizabeth Bishop, his first English language translator, as influential for his American reception, but though she admired him
Bishop claimed she barely knew him. In an interview with George Starbuck in
1977, she said:
- I didn't know him at all. He's supposed to be very shy. I'm supposed to be very shy. We've met once — on the sidewalk at
night. We had just come out of the same restaurant, and he kissed my hand politely when we were introduced. [1]
Bibliography (English translations)
- Souvenir of the Ancient World, translated by Mark Strand (Antaeus Editions, 1976)
- Looking for Poetry: Poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Rafael Alberti, with Songs from the Quechua, translated by
Mark Strand (Knopf, 2002)
- Travelling in the family : selected poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, translated by Thomas Colchie (Random
House, 1986)
- The minus sign : selected poems, translated by Virginia de Araujo (Black Swan, 1980)
- In the middle of the road; selected poems, translated by John A Nist (U of Arizona, 1965)
Further reading
English
- Brazilian writers / Mônica Rector., 2005
- The Cambridge history of Latin American literature. Volume 3, Brazilian literature / Roberto González Echevarría., 1996
- Tropical paths : essays on modern Brazilian literature / Randal Johnson., 1993
- Brazilian literature : a research bibliography / David William Foster., 1990
- The unquiet self : self and society in the poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade / Ricardo Sternberg., 1986
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade and his generation : proceedings / Frederick G Williams., 1986
Portuguese
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade : a poética do cotidiano / Maria Veronica Aguilera., 2002
- Os sapatos de Orfeu : biografia de Carlos Drummond de Andrade / José Maria Cançado., 1993
- Boitempo : autobiografia e memória em Carlos Drummond de Andrade / Regina Souza Vieira., 1992
- Poesia e poética de Carlos Drummond de Andrade / John Gledson., 1981
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade : análise da obra / Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna., 1980
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade / Silviano Santiago., 1976
- Terra e família na poesia de Carlos Drummond de Andrade / Joaquim-Francisco Coêlho., 1973
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade; ensaio / Assis Brasil., 1971
- Razão da Recusa: um estudo da poesia de Carlos Drummond de Andrade; ensaio/ Betina Bischof., 2005
- Coração Partido: uma análise da poesia reflexiva de Drummond; Davi Arrigucci Jr.., 2002
- Passos de Drummond; Alcides Villaça., 2005
Spanish
- Una poética de la despreocupación: modernidad e identidad en cuatro poetas latinoamericanos / Rafael Rodríguez., 2003
- Drummond, el poeta en el tiempo / Affonso Romano de Sant'Anna., 2003
- Estado de alerta y estado de inocencia : algunas reflexiones sobre la poesía y el arte / E Bayley., 1996
- Manuel Bandeira, Cecilia Meireles, Carlos Drummond de Andrade / Cipriano S Vitureira., 1952
External links
References
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