{"id":157993,"date":"2014-09-16T10:01:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T13:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=157993"},"modified":"2014-10-24T19:30:03","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T21:30:03","slug":"imagined-brazi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/imagined-brazi\/","title":{"rendered":"An Imagined Brazi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Suassuna

bel pedrosa \/ folhapress <\/span>Suassuna at the window of his home in Recife (1996): ambitious projectbel pedrosa \/ folhapress <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The desire to create an aesthetic project about Brazilian culture and the frequent dialogue between the classical and the popular marked the life of Ariano Suassuna, as described by the researchers who study his work.\u00a0 The lawyer, playwright, poet, graphic artist, university professor and, on three occasions, Secretary of Education and Culture, who died in July 2014, had an 87-year trajectory that could very well be the stuff of his own literary creations.<\/p>\n

As with all great writers, it is possible to identify how the work of Suassuna was influenced by other writers, notes Carlos Newton J\u00fanior, professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and author of O pai, o ex\u00edlio e o reino: a poesia armorial de Ariano Suassuna<\/em> [The Father, the exile and the kingdom: the armorial poetry of Ariano Saussuna] (Editora UFPE, 1999) and Ariano Suassuna 80, mem\u00f3ria: cat\u00e1logo e guia de fontes<\/em> [Ariano Suassuna at 80, memory: catalog and guide to sources] (Editora Sarau, 2008).\u00a0 \u201cAriano often mentioned how he was influenced by Brazilian writers such as Jos\u00e9 de Alencar and Euclides da Cunha, and foreign writers such as Cervantes, Moli\u00e8re, Goldoni, Lorca, to name a few,\u201d he says.\u00a0 According to Newton, the playwright channeled his literary idols in a poetic approach that was both personal and poised for a more ambitious aesthetic, and in so doing, redesigned, in the medium and long-term, the very notion of Brazilian culture.\u00a0 And for this, he devised an original form of poetry that sought to include the best of what the classical and the popular had to offer.<\/p>\n

To Newton J\u00fanior, it is within this context that we can understand the Armorial Movement.\u00a0 Begun by Ariano Suassuna in the early 1970s, it shared a connection to cordel literature through its music that included guitars, fiddles and flutes, as well as to the woodcuttings that illustrated the booklets of popular Northeastern folklore \u2013 the pull quotes on pages 82 and 84 of this article are set in armorial font, which is part of a graphic design Suassuna himself worked on, using old Brazilian cattle-branding irons as a reference.<\/p>\n

The Armorial Movement is a consequence of the \u201cdialogue between popular creation and original poetry of the singers and stories in the cordel literature,\u201d says Idelette Muzart Fonseca dos Santos, a French researcher who teaches at the Universit\u00e9 Paris Ouest Nanterre La D\u00e9fense.\u00a0 \u201cThis dialogue gave birth to works of poetry, theater and fictitious narrative that in turn fuels a theoretical contemplation of aesthetics,\u201d she says.\u00a0 Married to a Brazilian, dos Santos read Suassuna\u2019s Romance d\u2019a pedra do reino <\/em>[Romance of the Kingdom\u2019s Stone] in 1971 in France and decided to write her master\u2019s thesis about it.\u00a0 She defended her dissertation, Le roman de chevalerie et son interpr\u00e9tation par un \u00e9crivain br\u00e9silien contemporain: <\/em>o Romance d\u2019a pedra do reino, de Ariano Suassuna<\/em>,\u00a0 in 1974.\u00a0 She says that Suassuna\u2019s book has structural and thematic elements characteristic of the chivalric novel, including several references to Hist\u00f3ria de Carlos Magno e os doze pares de Fran\u00e7a <\/em>[The History of Charlemagne and the twelve peers of France].\u00a0 \u201cI wrote to Ariano and we exchanged long letters about medieval literature in general, which he knew well.\u00a0 It was only after I started writing my doctoral dissertation that I learned about Brazil and Ariano personally,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Ariano,

bel pedrosa \/ folhapress <\/span>Ariano, his wife, Z\u00e9lia, and son Dantas pose for a photo with tapestries in Recife (1991)bel pedrosa \/ folhapress <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Author of Em demanda da po\u00e9tica popular: Ariano Suassuna e o Movimento Armorial<\/em> [Popular poetry in demand: Ariano Suassuana and the Armorial Movement], (Editora Unicamp, 2009), de Santos remembers that in the 1950s, when Suassuna constructed his aesthetic, \u201cthere was an enormous feeling of hope in Brazil.\u201d And this persisted even after this initial dialogue, so much so that in the 1970s, the voice of the playwright gave rise to the movement in which the union between the classical world and the popular world set the tone for his armorial poetry.<\/p>\n

Art and dialogue
\n<\/strong>In the view of Newton J\u00fanior, armorial poetry can be understood as \u201cthe search for a classical Brazilian art that begins with popular culture, indigenous art and dialogue with Third World art.\u201d\u00a0 He notes that the poetry of the movement was far from expressing any consensus.\u00a0 \u201cIn art, there is no unanimity.\u00a0 But most critics who have actually studied the Armorial Movement recognize the quality of many of the works of armorial artists.\u201d Ariano Suassuna\u2019s armorial poetry influenced not only artists, musicians, writers and directors, but also academicians and Brazilian cultural scholars.\u00a0 This is underscored by the fact that Suassuna was himself a professor at UFPE. Starting in the mid-1950s, shortly after giving up the study of law, the writer dedicated 30 years to his academic career, becoming a professor of aesthetics.\u00a0 Once at the university, he became famous for giving classes that were veritable performances.\u00a0 It was at these events that Suassuna\u2019s signature as a public intellectual adapted itself to the willingness to talk to the common man.<\/p>\n

Ant\u00f4nio N\u00f3brega, one of the heirs to the armorial poetry defended by the playwright, says that Suassuna\u2019s charismatic storytelling sometimes appeared to hide a deeper understanding of his notion of aesthetics. \u201cAriano\u2019s charisma as a storyteller \u2013 he was a man with a prodigious memory \u2013 to me seemed to conceal the intellectual and the thinker who was extremely concerned about the great issues that affected the world, and Brazil in particular,\u201d says the Pernambucan artist, who writes, acts, directs, composes, sings and plays.\u00a0 In tapping his early memories about the emergence of the Armorial Movement back in the 1970s, N\u00f3brega \u2013 founder of the Espa\u00e7o Brincante [performing arts venue] in S\u00e3o Paulo that carries on the aesthetic objectives forged by Suassuna \u2013 notes that the reactions were\u00a0 extreme more than anything else. \u201cThere were those who openly embraced his ideas and those who radically rejected them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"Rehearsal

Karime Xavier \/ Folhapress<\/span>Rehearsal of a scene in A pedra do reino and dramatization of Antunes Filho in S\u00e3o Paulo (2006)Karime Xavier \/ Folhapress<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The murder of his father
\n<\/strong>A writer\u2019s life cannot be disconnected from his work. \u201cWhoever had the opportunity to attend one of the class-performances most likely heard the playwright talk about his father, Jo\u00e3o Suassuna, who was killed in 1930, when Ariano was just 13,\u201d says Eduardo Dimitrov, author of O Brasil dos espertos \u2013 uma an\u00e1lise da constru\u00e7\u00e3o social de Ariano Suassuna<\/em> [The Brazilians\u2019 clever characters: the constructions of playwright Ariano Suassuna\u2019s theatrical production of a memory] (Alameda\/FAPESP, 2009). To Dimitrov, who conducted his research at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP) under the advisorship of Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, a new meaning can be attributed to the writings of the author of Auto da Compadecida<\/em> [Play of Our Lady of Mercy] when one knows his life story.<\/p>\n

As a result of political disputes over control of the state of\u00a0\u00a0 Para\u00edba, the death of Jo\u00e3o Suassuna, within a context of systematic revenge-killings, profoundly affected Suassuna\u2019s aesthetic approach. \u201cAt one point, there was a schism within the Pessoa oligarchy during the government of Jo\u00e3o Suassuna, which grew deeper during the administration of his successor,\u00a0 Jo\u00e3o Pessoa,\u201d Dimitrov explains. \u201cAt the height of tensions fueled by the dispute, Jo\u00e3o Dantas, a relative of Ariano, murdered Jo\u00e3o Pessoa, which served as the catalyst for the 1930 Revolution.\u00a0\u00a0 In retaliation, allies of Jo\u00e3o Pessoa killed the assassin as well as Jo\u00e3o Suassuna.\u201d At the time, Rita de C\u00e1ssia, Jo\u00e3o\u2019s wife, was living with their eight children in Paulista, a city near Recife. Three years after the death of Jo\u00e3o Suassuna, the family moved to Tapero\u00e1, in the rural interior of Para\u00edba State. In 1942, the family moved to Recife.\u00a0 There, Ariano studied law at UFPE, and together with Hermilo Barbosa Filho founded the Pernambuco Student Theater in 1946.<\/p>\n

The episode involving the murder of his father had a huge impact on the work of Suassuna, says Dimitrov. \u201cThe way Ariano figured out how to keep his father alive, if not exact revenge, was by writing plays and other literary works that contained numerous\u00a0 references to a backlands world that he indirectly fuses with the core of his familial identity,\u201d notes the researcher.\u00a0 The author\u2019s fictional universe in this context is inspired by a creative dynamic that is biographical in nature. \u201cThe way that Ariano narrates the political dispute follows the same organizational principle as his plays.\u00a0 It is in this way that the biographical narrative and the fictional narrative become one,\u201d the researcher observes.<\/p>\n

\"Staging

ARCHIVES \/ Ag\u00eancia Estado \/ AE<\/span>Staging of the play Auto da Compadecida, in Rio [de Janeiro] (1957)ARCHIVES \/ Ag\u00eancia Estado \/ AE<\/span><\/p><\/div>The way Ariano Suassuna thought about Brazil persists today in the way in which his narratives represented the clash between the real Brazil and the official Brazil. \u201cTo him, the official Brazil was the one that belonged to the elites, while the real Brazil belonged to the people.\u00a0 Ariano recognized his own status as having come from the official Brazil, as a member of the elite, but he maintained that he was extremely sensitive to the real Brazil and that he strove always to understand the viewpoint of the people.\u201d\u00a0 That understanding is written into the plots by the writer whose comedies were based on the people from the real Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Play of our Lady of Mercy<\/em>, written in 1955, for example, all the characters revolve around the actions of Jo\u00e3o Grilo and Chic\u00f3, the two poor protagonists who dictate the rules of the game.\u00a0 The priest, the bishop, the baker and his wife, the colonel, the outlaw, and even the devil, Jesus Christ and the lady of mercy are involved in the tricks of the poor yet clever cowboy,\u201d he explains.\u00a0 According to this dynamic, says the researcher, the Brazil of the con artists \u2013 in other words, the poor people who survive despite their troubles \u2013 supplants the official Brazil, of those with power.<\/p>\n

Beyond the literature and drama, Ariano is perceived as a sensitive thinker with regard to the internal mechanisms that constitute the often invisible national identity.\u00a0 Therefore, if on the one hand, there is the author who, as Municipal Secretary of Education and Culture of Recife (1975-1978) and State Secretary of Culture of Pernambuco (1994-1998 and 2007-2010), made an effort to demonstrate that the country\u2019s culture is much stronger, richer and original than generally thought, as noted by Carlos Newton J\u00fanior, there is on the other hand, the organizer of genuinely Brazilian manifestations that sought to protect national culture from the urban and cultural industry.<\/p>\n

\"Ant\u00f4nio

DUDU SCHNAIDER<\/span>Ant\u00f4nio N\u00f3brega during his show: a more balanced understanding of Suassuna\u2019s body of workDUDU SCHNAIDER<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Fully aware of the importance Ariano Suassuna gave to his work as an artist, Ant\u00f4nio N\u00f3brega also notes that perceptions about the Pernambucan writer as a staunch defender of Brazilian culture could, to a certain extent, compromise the very understanding of what he had to say about this culture. \u201cI think the vision one has of Ariano as a Brazilian culture radical prevents a more balanced understanding of his legacy.\u201d\u00a0 To this end, Newton J\u00fanior says that there are still aspects we know little about when it comes to the author of Romance of the Kingdom\u2019s Stone<\/em>, originally published in 1971. \u201cPoetry is one of them.\u00a0 Another, about which even less is known, is his work in the fine arts.\u00a0 Ariano\u2019s work in the fields of theater and narrative has overshadowed his poetry,\u201d says the professor, who is also a poet and editor of the collection of Suassuna\u2019s poetry in book form (Poemas <\/em>[Poems], Editora UFPE, 1999, out of print).<\/p>\n

By observing the works of Ariano Suassuna in plays (Uma mulher vestida de sol<\/em>, [A Woman Clothed in Sunshine] from 1947; A pena e a lei<\/em>, [Punishment and the Law] from 1959; A farsa da boa pregui\u00e7a<\/em>, [The Farce of Happy Indolence] from 1960), narratives (A hist\u00f3ria do amor de Fernando e Isaura<\/em>, [The Love Story of Fernando and Isaura] from 1956; Hist\u00f3ria do rei degolado nas caatingas do sert\u00e3o<\/em>, [The Story of the king beheaded in the hinterlands] from1977), poems (Ode<\/em>, from 1955; Sonetos com mote alheio<\/em>, [Sonnets using foreign themes] from 1980), essays, and public actions in defense of Brazilian culture, we see, according to his scholars, that in addition to being a creator, he sought to forge an ideal Brazil in the imagination of the public, a Brazil where the vicissitudes of social differences were solved through the story-telling and cunning of people from the real Brazil.\u00a0 To a certain extent, it can be said that this strategy serves as a metaphor for Brazilian cultural thinkers concerned about the stripping away of the national culture.\u00a0 To prevent this collapse, he forged a fiction out of popular tradition, steeped in aesthetics, and representative of the Brazilian people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suassuna forged fiction popular aesthetic matrix with high density","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[245],"coauthors":[1347],"class_list":["post-157993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","tag-literature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157993"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=157993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}