CLÁSSICOS BRASILEIROS BRAZILIAN CLASSICS - Imprensa Oficial

Brazilian Classics
A selection of authors with works in public domain
60
GRAÇA ARANHA
(1868 – 1931)
In 1902, when it was published, Canaan, one of
the rare symbolist novels in the history of Brazilian
literary, achieved an exemplary success. Taking
into account that four years before the author of
that book had been among those who founded
the Brazilian Literary Academy, an institution
devoted to promoting the unity of the national
literature, one can evaluate Graça Aranha's
prestige among the intellectual elite of the time.
One thing that nobody could image was that this
writer would come to adhere to the movement
led by the modernists, thereby offering them the
support of an intellectual significance that they
had not achieved so far for the readers. However,
Graça Aranha, the author of a play staged in
Paris, not only supported the Modem Art Week,
but delivered the introductory speech at the São
Paulo Municipal Theater investing against the
academies and schools that then ruled good taste
and good-sense. Besides that, in 1924, in a lecture
delivered at the very Brazilian Literary Academy,
he resigned from that institution on the grounds
that the creation had been a mistake, since it was
unable to admit "the concealed driving forces of
our chaos." surely referring to the modernist ideas.
Review
Main works
Canaã (1902); Malazarte (1911); A estética da vida (1921); A viagem maravilhosa (1930).
Excerpt
Canaan
A lot of trees had been contaminated, were
burning like monstrous torches, and reaching
their arms to one another to spread the
maelstrom of fire all over. The wind penetrated
through the clearings and whizzed, poking the
flame. The heavy branches of trees falling, the
popping green trunks, the melting resins spying
around would produce the desperate music of a
huge and terrifying fusillade. The men looked at
each other amazed before the victims' clamor.
Tongues of poisonous fire would try to reach
them. They would retreat, fleeing from the
persecution of the marching column. Above the
forest, frightened birds would escape, ascending
to the heights in desperate flight, hovering above
the smoke. A bellbird harrowed the air with a
metallic and distressing cry. The nests hanging
from the trees all burned, and a lamenting cheep
joined the choir as soft, sad accord. Dislodged by
the rage of the flames, the animals ran through
the clearings in the wood. Some managed to
escape the danger, but others fell motionless in
the furnace.
One of the rare serious writers
"In our literature, except for Graça Aranha, who has been sustaining an amazingly evolving line of thinking - Canaan,
Malazarte, A Estética da Vida -, we have only Afrânio Peixoto and a very few other serious writers."
(Oswald de Andrade, "O Futurismo tem tendências clássicas")
A roaring repercussion in europe
"In November 1921, O Estado de S. Paulo published two long articles by Elísio de Carvalho about Graça Aranha's
philosophy and his repercussion in Europe, where he was regarded as 'the greatest glory for the Brazilian name and
a pride for the entire Latin race'. He 'was incorporated in the European culture because of his ideas and style, being
entitled the same rights and prerogatives with which Goethe and Shelley, Nietzsche and Ibsen, Tolstoy and D'Annunzio had
imposed themselves to the world admiration'."
(Nicolau Sevcenko, Orfeu extático na metrópole)