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Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/a> Drawing of the Portuguese writer by her brother, Apeles EspancaWikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n \u201cMaria L\u00facia not only produced an important bibliography, which became a reference for Espanca studies, but also supervised academic projects and created an important research group on Espanca,\u201d says Vilela. The researcher refers to \u201cFigurations of the feminine: Florbela Espanca et al<\/em>.,\u201d which operated between 2010 and 2021 at UFS. \u201cThis group helped to galvanize a new generation of Espanca researchers in Brazil,\u201d says Portuguese professor Cl\u00e1udia Pazos Alonso, from the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, and author of the book Imagens do eu na poesia de Florbela Espanca<\/em> (Images of the self in the poetry of Florbela Espanca) (Imprensa Nacional\/Casa da Moeda) released in 1997 in Portugal as the result of her doctoral thesis at Oxford.<\/p>\n Jonas Leite, from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) was a member of this group, and author of the recently released De Florbela \u00e0s Florbelas: Do mito liter\u00e1rio \u00e0 inven\u00e7\u00e3o de uma personagem-escritora<\/em> (From Florbela to the Florbelas: From literary myth to the invention of a writer as fictional character) (EDUPE). In the book, the result of his doctoral dissertation at Para\u00edba State University (UEPB), Leite analyzes five plays about Florbela written in Brazil and Portugal, as well as the novelized biography Florbela Espanca, a vida e a obra <\/em>(The life and work of Florbela Espanca) (1979), by Portuguese writer Agustina Bessa-Lu\u00eds (1922\u20132019), and a set of poems written by Dal Farra in the writer’s honor. \u201cFlorbela’s literary work is indeed tangled up in the intricacies of her life story, but, above all, it’s essential to acknowledge the importance of her literature and her unquestionable talent. Hence the need for studies on her highly complex life,\u201d says Leite.<\/p>\n Between reality and fiction<\/strong> While she was alive Espanca would publish just one more work, Livro de \u201cs\u00f3ror Saudade\u201d<\/em> (Sister Saudade’s book) (Tipografia A Americana), in 1923. \u201cThese two books have a thematic connection. In the first, the writer personifies a princess in a castle, in the second, a nun in the cloister, both waiting for their Prince Charming who never arrives. Through them she speaks about the pain engendered by misunderstanding and the lack of loving correspondence,\u201d explains Renata Junqueira, a professor of Portuguese literature at S\u00e3o Paulo State University (UNESP), Araraquara campus.<\/p>\n (excerpt from Charneca em flor<\/em>)<\/div>\n Both titles came out at the time when modernism was emerging in Portugal via poets such as Fernando Pessoa (1888\u20131935) and M\u00e1rio de S\u00e1-Carneiro (1890\u20131916). \u201cBut Espanca didn’t affiliate with any literary schools. Her poetry is unclassifiable, has its own distinct personality and draws from various sources, such as symbolism,\u201d observes Silva, who worked with Alonso on the most recent re-release of some of the author’s work in Portugal. \u201cNot to mention how difficult it was for a woman to carve out space in Portuguese modernism, which was essentially masculine and sexist\u2014for example, there wasn’t one woman working on the Orpheu<\/em> journal [1915], the initial milestone of the movement in Portugal.\u201d<\/p>\n Because she wrote sonnets, critics relegated Espanca to the nineteenth century. \u201cWhich is absurd, because she was a woman who not only lived during the first three decades of the twentieth century, but also portrayed the female concerns of that time,\u201d Junqueira says. An example of this is her posthumous book Charneca em flor<\/em> (Heathland in flower) (Livraria Gon\u00e7alves, 1931). \u201cThis book is more sensual than her previous work, and here Espanca praises the liberation of the woman’s body. It was an innovation for Portuguese poetry,\u201d adds the scholar, who has been focusing on Espanca’s work since graduate school. Dal Farra agrees. \u201cShe was one of the first to write about female desire in Portuguese literature,\u201d she observes.<\/p>\n The two scholars believe it’s thanks to this pioneering spirit that the writer has in the end sustained a dialogue with later generations of Portuguese poets, especially from the second half of the twentieth century forward, such as Ad\u00edlia Lopes, author of the book Florbela Espanca espanca<\/em> (Florbela Espanca beats) (1999). In Brazil, Junqueira can see this dialogue in authors such as Dal Farra herself, who won the Jabuti Literature Prize with the book of poems Alumbramentos<\/em> (Illuminations) (Iluminuras publisher, 2012), and the writer and poet Maria Mortatti, a professor at UNESP’s Mar\u00edlia campus and author of the book of poems Brevi\u00e1rio amoroso de s\u00f3ror Beatriz<\/em> (Sister Beatriz’ Amorous Breviary) (Editora Patu\u00e1, 2019).<\/p>\n Jo\u00e3o Maria Espanca \/ National Library of Portugal <\/span><\/a> Dead at the age of 36, Espanca wrote her first verses during childhoodJo\u00e3o Maria Espanca \/ National Library of Portugal <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In addition, Florbela’s life and work inspired plays, the feature film Florbela<\/em> (2012)\u2014a Portuguese production directed by Vicente Alves do \u00d3\u2014as well as songs in Brazil and Portugal, Leite points out. For example, Raimundo Fagner, the singer-songwriter from the state of Cear\u00e1, set some of the Espanca\u2019s sonnets to music, such as Fanatismo<\/em>, from the Livro de \u201cs\u00f3ror Saudade,\u201d<\/em> released on the album Traduzir-se<\/em> (1981), which became one of his greatest hits. \u201cEven those who’ve never read Florbela are likely to be acquainted with her, without knowing it, through music,\u201d says Andreia de Lima Andrade, a professor at UFRPE.<\/p>\n \u201cBut she received hardly any recognition during her own life. Florbela began achieving popularity in Portugal shortly after her death due to the initiative of the Italian poet Guido Battelli (1869\u20131955), a professor at the University of Coimbra,\u201d says Dal Farra. \u201cBattelli met Florbela in 1930 and decided to sponsor the publication of Charneca em flor<\/em>. With the poet\u2019s unexpected death and the book about to come out, he resorted to a marketing strategy that exploited Florbela\u2019s suicide to attract the attention of readers and the press.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, the newspapers of the time raised suspicions about the writer’s private life. Among the rumours was the idea that Florbela allegedly had an incestuous passion for her only brother, Apeles Espanca (1896\u20131927). After he died in a plane crash, she honored his memory with the book of short stories As M\u00e1scaras do destino<\/em> [The masks of fate], published posthumously by Mar\u00e2nus publishing in 1931; her second book of short stories, O domin\u00f3 preto<\/em> (The black domino), wouldn’t be published until 1982, by Livraria Bertrand. There was also talk about the fact that her birth was the result of an extramarital relationship between her father, the antique dealer and photographer Jo\u00e3o Maria Espanca (1866\u20131954) and Ant\u00f3nia da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o Lobo (1879\u20131908).<\/p>\n (excerpt from Charneca em flor<\/em>) Battelli\u2019s strategy worked from a financial standpoint and Charneca em flor<\/em> was a commercial success. \u201cHowever, from then on the connection between Espanca’s biography and her work became fixed. In addition, while gaining notoriety, Florbela became a target of the Salazar dictatorship, with support from the Catholic Church,\u201d observes Dal Farra, referring to the regime that officially lasted between 1932 and 1974, but noting that Portugal had already been under a conservative, authoritarian government since the 1920s. \u201cIn that moralistic context, which defended the ideal of a chaste, pure, and domestic woman, Florbela ended up a persona non grata: she was persecuted, branded as a debauched woman, and even a prostitute. They tried in vain to erase her work.\u201d Not merely by chance, a bust carved in the writer’s honor in 1931, by Portuguese sculptor Diogo de Macedo (1889\u20131959), was only inaugurated in the city of \u00c9vora 18 years later, after much public controversy.<\/p>\n The researchers believe this confusion between reality and fiction damaged the critical reception of Espanca’s work. \u201cFor many years, the critics themselves have grandly continued, with few exceptions, identifying biographical events between the lines of all of her work,\u201d says Junqueira, author of Florbela Espanca, uma est\u00e9tica da teatralidade<\/em> (Florbela Espanca: An aesthetics of theatricality) (Editora UNESP, 2003). \u201cIt should be noted, however, that in each of her books, Florbela wears a mask. While in the Livro de ‘s\u00f3ror Saudade’<\/em> she takes on the guise of a nun, in Charneca em flor<\/em> she embodies the role of a seductive sorceress who masterfully manipulates love, passion, and eroticism.\u201d<\/p>\n This emphasis on her personal past is now behind us, experts say. \u201cThe biography written by Agustina Bessa-Lu\u00eds, released in 1979, opened up new possibilities for understanding Florbela as a character and not the author of an autobiographical work,\u201d argues Jonas Leite. \u201cThis is a path that has been followed by most researchers since the 1980s.\u201d Such is the case for Andrade, at UFRPE, who is author of the thesis \u201cFrom dominoes to masks: The autofictional game in Florbelian short stories,\u201d defended in 2019 at UEPB. Andrade believes the Portuguese writer and poet had been constructing a kind of autofictional literary game.<\/p>\n Public domain. Archive and digitization of Jo\u00e3o Bacelar Espanca, provided by Fabio Mario da Silva<\/span><\/a> Florbela Espanca (in the flower hat<\/em>) in 1918 with friends, her brother Apeles (in the middle, looking to the side<\/em>), and her first husband, Alberto Moutinho (between Apeles’ legs<\/em>)Public domain. Archive and digitization of Jo\u00e3o Bacelar Espanca, provided by Fabio Mario da Silva<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Pioneering works<\/strong> Dal Farra believes Espanca\u2019s work must have been introduced to Brazilian academia by the Portuguese intellectual Jorge de Sena (1919\u20131978), who went into exile in Brazil in 1959 and began teaching at the institution now known as UNESP, initially at the Assis campus and then in Araraquara. \u201cThe first bibliographic survey on Florbela’s treatment in literary academia was conducted at UNESP in Araraquara by researcher Carlos Alberto Iannone, in the 1960s,\u201d says Farra. \u201cAnother pioneer is Zina Bellodi, who began editing works on Espanca in the 1970s and defended her doctoral dissertation \u201cFlorbela Espanca: Discourse of the Other and Image of the Self,\u201d in 1987, also on the Araraquara campus.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, the CAPES theses and dissertations catalog records 59 academic works on the author, conducted in various Brazilian universities from 1992 to 2020. \u201cBut there is still a lot to study about Florbela Espanca. It would be possible to delve deeper, for example, into her prose production, in this case the short stories, letters, and diary, which have been eclipsed by her poetry,\u201d says Andrade, from UFRPE.<\/p>\n At the moment, Henrique Marques Samyn, from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), awaits the release of Esparsos de Florbela Espanca<\/em> (The scattered works of Florbela Espanca), scheduled for next year, in Portugal. The book, done in partnership with Silva, from UFRPE, brings together stories, aphorisms, poems, and even unpublished verses written by a young Espanca in 1907, on the back cover of her physics book, while she was still in elementary school. \u201cThis material was scattered amongst sources such as newspapers and manuscripts. It was a mining job,\u201d says Samyn. Another release scheduled for 2022, also in Portugal, is the Dicion\u00e1rio Florbela Espanca<\/em>, organized by Silva and Leite, at UFPE. The work, which is being overseen by Dal Farra, features more than 100 entries prepared by around 80 researchers from countries such as France, England, the United States, and Portugal, including entries by, for example, Jos\u00e9 Carlos Seabra Pereira, a professor at the University of Coimbra, who has studied the author since the 1980s. \u201cFlorbela still has a lot to say to us in the twenty-first century,\u201d concludes Silva.<\/p>\n Books<\/strong>
\nBorn in Vila Vi\u00e7osa, in the Alentejo region of Portugal, Florbela d’Alma da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o Espanca began to write verse as a child, but her official literary debut came in 1919 with the publication of Livro de M\u00e1goas<\/em> (Book of sorrows) (Tipografia Maur\u00edcio). In 2019, Fabio Mario da Silva, another member of the UFS research group and a professor at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), organized an international conference with Vilela to celebrate the centenary of the work (which comprises 32 of Espanca’s sonnets), as well as to honor Dal Farra. Held in Portugal, the conference resulted in two publications launched this year: A cr\u00edtica e a poetisa: Estudos sobre Maria L\u00facia Dal Farra<\/em> (The critic and poet: Studies on Maria L\u00facia Dal Farra) (Libertas Editora and Sol Negro Edi\u00e7\u00f5es\/Arc Edi\u00e7\u00f5es) and 100 anos do Livro de m\u00e1goas. Releituras da obra de Florbela Espanca<\/em> (100 years of the Book of Sorrows: Rereading the works of Florbela Espanca) (Sol Negro Edi\u00e7\u00f5es\/Arc Edi\u00e7\u00f5es), with articles by researchers based in Brazil, Portugal, Spain, England, and France.<\/p>\n
\nI want to love, love hopelessly!
\nLove just for love’s sake:
\nHere\u2026 beyond\u2026
\nAnd this one and that one,
\nthe Other and everyone\u2026
\nLove! To love!
\nAnd not love anyone! Remember? Forget? I\u2019m indifferent!\u2026
\nHang on or let go?
\nIs it bad? Is it good?
\nAnyone who says you can love someone
\nFor an entire lifetime
\n\u2014it’s because they’re lying!<\/p>\n
\nSo far I haven’t
\nknown myself, I thought it was
\nme, but I was not
\nThe one that in my
\nverses I had described
\nAs clear as a spring
\nand like the day.
\nBut what I was not
\nI didn’t know
\nand even if I had known,
\nI did not say…
\nEyes fixed on shimmering chimera, It walked behind me\u2026
\nAnd didn’t see me!
\nIt was looking for me \u2014
\npoor crazy thing!<\/p>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAccording to Dal Farra\u2019s research, the first dissertation on Espanca’s work was done by Maria de Lourdes Barreiros Lopes, in 1945, at the University of Lisbon. The second academic work appeared 14 years later, as a master’s thesis by Maria Manuela Moreira Nunes, at the University of Coimbra, also in Portugal. \u201cIn the late 1980s, when I became interested in researching Florbela, she was practically forgotten in Portuguese universities,\u201d recalls Alonso, of the University of Oxford. \u201cShe’s still being studied in various other countries today, perhaps more than in Portugal.\u201d One of the reasons, suspects Vilela, is her great popularity among readers. \u201cShe is what’s called a ‘poet of the people\u2019; studied in elementary school, and known by everyone, from taxi drivers to the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who chose a poem by Florbela to be recited in 2020 before the official speeches for the Day of Portugal, Cam\u00f5es and the Portuguese Communities, celebrated on June 10th<\/sup>. Maybe that’s why academics have considered her a \u2018simple\u2019 author, and not very complex, which, in my view, is a mistake,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\nDAL FARRA, Maria L\u00facia; VILELA, Ana Lu\u00edsa; SILVA, Fabio Mario da; FINA, Rosa (ed.). 100 anos do Livro de M\u00e1goas<\/strong>. Releituras da Obra de Florbela Espanca<\/em>. Natal: Sol Negro Edi\u00e7\u00f5es\/ARC Edi\u00e7\u00f5es, 2021.
\nVILELA, Ana Lu\u00edsa; SILVA, Fabio Mario da; PEDROSA, In\u00eas; FINA, Rosa (ed.). A cr\u00edtica e a poetisa<\/strong>: Estudos sobre Maria L\u00facia Dal Farra<\/em>. Recife: Libertas Editora (1st edition), Natal: Sol Negro Edi\u00e7\u00f5es\/ARC Edi\u00e7\u00f5es, 2021.
\nLEITE, Jonas. De Florbela \u00e0s Florbelas: Do mito liter\u00e1rio \u00e0 inven\u00e7\u00e3o de uma personagem-escritora<\/a>. Recife: Edupe, 2021. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brazilian researchers have taken a lead role in studies on the complex career of Portuguese writer and poet Florbela Espanca","protected":false},"author":689,"featured_media":428457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","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":[3453],"class_list":["post-428564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-literature"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428564","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\/689"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431180,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428564\/revisions\/431180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428564"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=428564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}