Manuel Carneiro de Sousa Bandeira Filho (April 19, 1886 – October 13, 1968) 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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

, and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

, who wrote over 20 books of poetry and prose.

Life and career

Bandeira was born in

Recife Recife ( , ) is the Federative units of Brazil, state capital of Pernambuco, Brazil, on the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of South America. It is the largest urban area within both the North Region, Brazil, North and the Northeast R ...

Pernambuco Pernambuco ( , , ) is a States of Brazil, state of Brazil located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.5 million people as of 2024, it is the List of Brazilian states by population, ...

. In 1904, he found out that he suffered from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

, which encouraged him to move from

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, because of Rio's tropical beach weather. In 1922, after an extended stay in

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where Bandeira met many prominent authors and painters, he contributed poems of political and social criticism to the

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

movement in São Paulo. Bandeira began to publish his most important works in 1924. He became a respected Brazilian author and wrote for several newspapers and magazines. He also taught Hispanic Literature in Rio de Janeiro. Bandeira began to translate into Portuguese canonical plays of world literature in 1956, something he continued to do until his last days. He died in Rio de Janeiro. Bandeira's poems have a unique delicacy and beauty. Recurrent themes that can be found in his works are: the love of women, his childhood in the Northeast city of

, friends, and health problems. His delicate health affected his poetry, and many Many of his poems depict the limits of the human body. He is one of Brazil's most admired and inspiring poets until today. In fact, the "bandeiriano rhythm" deserves in-depth studies of essayists. Manuel Bandeira has a simple and direct style, but does not share the hardness of poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, also a Pernambucano. Indeed, in an analysis of the works of Manuel Bandeira and João Cabral de Melo Neto, one sees that, unlike the latter, who aims to purge the lyricism of his work, Bandeira was the most lyrical of poets. His work addresses universal themes and everyday concerns, sometimes with an approach of "poem-a-joke", dealing with forms and inspiration that academic tradition considers vulgar. In addition, his vast knowledge of literature was used to speak about everyday topics, sometimes using forms taken from classical and medieval traditions. In his debut work (that had very short circulation) there are rigid poetic compositions, rich rhymes and sonnets in perfect measure. In his later work we find as the rondo compositions and ballads. His poetry, far from being a little sweet song of melancholy, is deeply concerned with a drama combining his personal history and conflicts stylistic lived by the poets of his time. ''Cinza das Horas''—Ash from the Hours presents a great view: the hurt, the sadness, resentment, framed by the morbid style of late symbolism. ''Carnaval'', a book that came soon afte''r Cinza das Horas'' opens with the unpredictable: the evocation of the Bacchic and satanic carnival, but it ends in the middle of melancholy. This hesitation between jubilation and joint pain will be figurative in several dimensions. Instead, happiness appears in poems like "''Vou-me Embora para Pasárgada''" 'I'm off to Pasargadae''">Pasargadae.html" ;"title="'I'm off to Pasargadae">'I'm off to Pasargadae''" where the question is dreamy evocation of an imaginary country, the Pays de Cocagne, where every desire, especially erotic, is satisfied. Passargada is not elsewhere, but an intangible place, a locus of spiritual amenus. In Bandeira, the object of desire is veiled. Adopting the trope of the Portuguese ''saudade'', ''Pasargada'' and many other poems are similar in a nostalgic remembrance of Bandeira's childhood, street life, as well as the everyday world of provincial Brazilian cities of the early 20th century. The intangible is also feminine and erotic. Torn between a sheer idealism of friendly and platonic unions and a voluptuous carnality, Manuel Bandeira is, in many of his poems, a poet of guilt. The pleasure is not accomplished by the satisfaction of desire, but it is the excitement of loss that satisfies the desire. In ''O Ritmo Dissoluto issolute Rhythm'' eroticism, so morbid in the first two books, is longing, it is the dissolution of a liquid element, as it is the case of wet nights in Loneliness.

Bibliography

A Literature

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, he was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters where he was the third occupant of the 24th Chair whose patron was Júlio Ribeiro. His election took place on August 29, 1940, succeeding Luís Guimarães and he was formally introduced by academician Ribeiro Couto on November 30, 1940. He died at the age of 82, on October 18, 1968, in Botafogo (a borough of Rio de Janeiro). His funeral took place at the grand hall of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and he was buried at the São João Batista Cemetery.

Example

Poetry

* ''Alumbramentos'', 1960 * ''Antologia Poética'' * ''Berimbau e Outros Poemas'', 1986 * ''Carnaval'', 1919 * ''50 Poemas Escolhidos pelo Autor'', 1955 * ''A Cinza das Horas'', 1917 * ''A Cinza das Horas, Carnaval e O Ritmo Dissoluto'', 1994 * ''Estrela da Manhã'', 1936 * ''Estrela da Tarde'', 1959 * ''Estrela da Vida Inteira. Poesias Reunidas'', 1966 * ''This Earth, That Sky: Poems'' (English translation of ''Estrela da vida inteira''), 1989 * ''Libertinagem'', 1930 * ''Libertinagem. Estrela da Manhã. Edição crítica'', 1998 * ''Mafuá do Malungo. Jogos Onomásticos e Outros Versos de Circunstância'' 1948. * ''O Melhor Soneto de Manuel Bandeira'', 1955 * ''Os Melhores Poemas de Manuel Bandeira'' Selected and edited by Francisco de Assis Barbosa, 1984 * ''A Morte'', 1965. (special edition) * ''Opus 10'', 1952 * ''Pasárgada'', 1959 * ''Um Poema de Manuel Bandeira'', 1956 * ''Poemas de Manuel Bandeira com Motivos Religiosos'', 1985 * ''Poesia'' Selected by Alceu Amoroso Lima, 197 * ''Poesia e Prosa'', 1958 * ''Poesias'', 192 * ''Poesias Completas'', 1940 * ''Poesias Escolhidas,'' 1937 * ''Seleta em Prosa e Verso'' Selected and edited by Emanuel de Morais, 1971

References

External links