Aesthetics of Equilibrium: The Vanguard Poetics of Vicente Huidobro and Mário de Andrade

Notes

203 Notes 203 Preface The Latin American Avant-Garde: Context for Vicente Huidobro’s and Mário de Andrade’s Poetics 1. Although critics do not agree on the duration of the avant-garde period in Latin America, a generally accepted range lasts from 1914 to 1938. Schwartz enumerates the following views on the duration of the Latin American avant-garde: 1916–35 (Verani), 1916–39 (Schopf), 1919–29 (Osorio), 1905–? (Szabolscsi), 1914–38 (Schwartz) (28–32). Teles maintains that Brazil’s case is distinct, having begun in 1922 (with precursors as early as 1917) and ended only recently, albeit in an extended final phase (Vanguarda 14). Throughout the text I will mean Latin America to encompass Spanish America (the Spanish-speaking nations of the Americas) and Brazil. 2. The Brazilian vanguard movement known as modernismo had nothing to do with Hispanic modernismo, which roughly corresponded to the parnasianismo period in Brazil. These two latter periods were direct precursors of the avant-garde; they were the styles against which the new artists reacted. 3. For the sake of clarity, the avant-garde can be designated as a period , while the various “ismos” can be called movements that make up the avant-garde period, in Latin America as in the rest of the world. 4. I shall follow convention in referring to Mário de Andrade by his first name. 5. The purpose here is not to reproduce biographies but rather to give a brief and schematic account of relevant highlights. Biographical information on both authors is abundant; my main sources for these paragraphs are Concha, Cornejo, all of de Costa’s work, Teitelboim, Lopez (“Uma Cronologia para Mário de Andrade”), and Alves. 6. Regarding the protagonists, Pizarro observes that “La fuerza antiheroica de este Cid magnificado, amado y a veces ridiculizado tiernamente, llevado en todo caso a lo cotidiano, es la misma que guía al perezoso y sensual «héroe» Macunaíma” (67). 7. Unless noted otherwise, all translations are mine. Introduction A Desire for Equilibrium in Avant-Garde Poetics: The Parables “Non serviam” and “Parabola d’A escrava que não é Isaura” 1. Huidobro’s close friend Juan Larrea, and Jaime Concha among others (see Concha 46), insist that “Non serviam” was written later than 1914. This is only one of many discrepancies in Huidobro’s chronology; a complete discussion of Huidobro’s chronological inconsistencies may be found in de Costa and in Bajarlía. 204 2. Goic points out that Huidobro posits this confrontation against Nature , and not against realism as his European contemporaries generally did (60); the more abstract and symbolic Nature presents a greater creative license, especially within the parable format. 3. Huidobro mentions Alomar’s text in Pasando y pasando (1914); Larrea comments on the way in which Huidobro uses the text to disparage Marinetti. Larrea also insinuates that Huidobro may have learned about Alomar’s ideas through Darío’s Dilucidaciones and El canto errante. See also Camurati (34–64) regarding Huidobro’s reception of Alomar’s and Vasseur’s ideas. 4. The title is a ludic allusion to Bernardo Guimarães’s well-known 1875 novel, A Escrava Isaura, about a slave who flees her licentious master to find true love in the arms of an idealistic youth. 5. Huidobro does mention Lucifer’s insurrection in the manifesto “La creación pura”: “El Hombre sacude su yugo, se rebela contra la naturaleza como antaño se rebelara Lucifer contra Dios, a pesar de que esta rebelión sólo es aparente [. . .]” (720). Again the context relates to a new, parallel creation more than to a world in opposition; the poet’s rebelliousness undeniably links him to Lucifer (Altazor as a fallen angel), but Huidobro stresses the creative result of the revolution and consequently the poet’s Adam-like nature. 6. Mário uses the word subconsciência in the unspecialized sense; in psychoanalytic terms, this force is really the “unconscious.” Either the word unconscious or at times Jung’s term, the collective unconscious, will be used throughout this study except when quoting Mário. 7. The parable text does not mention Noah or the flood, but Poetry survives intact undoubtedly because of her strategic location atop MountArarat. 8. See Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, ch. 5, “Adam and Eve,” esp. pp. 388–90. 9. The following discussion is based on Todorov’s lecture “Living Together Alone,” presented at the University of Virginia on Oct. 12, 1994. Some of the material for this...