CLÁSSICOS BRASILEIROS BRAZILIAN CLASSICS - Imprensa Oficial

Brazilian Classics
A selection of authors with works in public domain
96
OLAVO BILAC
(1865 – 1918)
“Ora (direis) ouvir estrelas! Certo / Perdeste o
senso ...” (Bah!, (you'II say) listening to stars! Fine
/ You're out of your mind ... ) is the beginning of
one of the most popular poems in the country.
You'll hardly find a Brazilian who fails to know
by heart these first verses, or has never, at least,
heard them. Among both the erudite and the
popular, the book Poesias (Poems), published
in 1888, achieved immediate success. With
this book, the Parnassian movement reached
the apex, then consolidating the long¬yearned
overshadowing over romanticism, whose appeal
to spontaneity and an easy sentimentality was
seen, at that time, as decadent. Influenced by the
French masters (especially Théophile Gautier
and Leconte de Lisle) as well as by the Portuguese
tradition, Olavo Bilac valued the technical
perfection, whose syntax was characterized by a
strict compliance with the Portuguese grammar,
by a rich rhyme, and by the sculptural fixed forms:
his poetic jewelry was rarely paralleled. In 1913,
a committee of writers elected him the Prince of
the Brazilian Poets. He had the gratification of
seeing that his poems were the most read in the
soirées and literary gatherings at the turning of
the 20th century, which made the popularity of
his verses evident.
Review
Main works
Excerpt
The Portuguese language
Last blossom of Latium, uncouth and beautiful,
You are, at a time, splendor and grave:
Homegrown gold that, in the impure gangue
Among the graveis keeps vigil over the raw
veinstore.;
I love you like this, ignored ond obscure,
A high-clang tuba, a modest Iyre,
Having the roar and the whistle of the tempest,
And he cooing of nostalgia and tenderness!
I love your bloom and your fragrance
Of virgin forests and wide ocean!
I love you, my raw and painful language,
In whose sounds the maternal voice I heard: 'My
son!',
And in whose words Camões cried, from the
grievous exile,
The misfortuned genius and the shineless love.
Poetry with a large audience
"Unlike his notoble peers, who hesitantly groped the citadel of Form, Bilac, making his literary debut at the age of 23 by
publishing the book Poesias (Poems), appeared engaged in the strictest rigidity of the new school, and yet showing such a
f1uency in language and metric, a barely covert sensuolity that made him much more occessible for the general oudience."
(Manuel Bandeira, "Apresentação da poesia brasileira")
One of the national poetry's zenith
"Olavo Bilac was the culmination of one of the richest phases in the nationol poetry, namely the Parnassian. [, .. ]
Parnassianism and Bilac are still alive in the admiration of a considerable portion af the Brazilian peaple, as attested
by the successive reprintings af his books. Not a few of his verses beca me proverbicl, quoted even bv people wha never
read them and only gat to know them bv allusion or citations."
(R. Magalhães Júnior, "O autor e sua obra")
Poesias (1888); Crônicas e novelas (1894); Crítica e fantasia (1904); Conferências literárias (1906); Tratado de versificação
(1910); Dicionário de rimas (1913); Discursos (1915); lronia e piedade (1916); Tarde (1919); Últimas conferências e
discursos (1924); Poesia (1957).