Envisioning Brazil: A Guide to Brazilian Studies in the United States

Chapter 5. Literature, Culture, and Civilization

CHAPTER 5 Literature, Culture, and Civilization K . DAVID JACKSON INTRODUCTION The study of Brazilian literature and culture in the United States today represents the convergence and interrelationship of diverse historical currents related to u.s.interest in Brazil. These include but are not limited to (1) the work of pioneers in Portuguese language and philology and the literature of Portugal; (2) early writings by missionaries, travelers, and scholars; (3) the development of university studies, courses, and departments that would eventually offer advanced degrees; (4) the presence of Brazilian authors, professors, specialists, and advanced students of Brazilian literature in the United States; (5) the development of Brazilian studies specialists in history and the social sciences; (6) the development of Brazilian Portuguese-language courses; (7) publishing of literary histories, anthologies, and essays on Brazil; (8) translations ofBrazilian books, essays, and literary works; (9) the growth of specialized libraries and collections; (10) international colloquia on Luso-Brazilian studies; and (11) since 1945, the inclusion of Brazil in U.S. area studies of Latin America. The purpose of this assessment is to review the principles on which the study of Brazilian literature, culture, and civilization (often referred to in the profession as "Portuguese") in the United States has been based historically , its chronological development, and, finally, to evaluate its current directions and dynamics. The historical development of studies of Brazilian literature and culture in the United States may be separated into several phases or stages: "pioneers" (before 1950); "founders" (from 1950 to 1970); and "specialists" (from 1970 to 2000). 94 K. DAVID JACKSON HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT TO 1950 The continental Portuguese language and early literature are the first areas of documented interest. A grammar of Portuguese was published in Baltimore in 1820, eleven years before one would be available for Spanish. A group of eminent philologists, scholars of medieval and Renaissance literatures , constitute the first exponents of literary studies in Portuguese as a field, which these scholars did much to create and advance. Yale professor Henry R. Lang published on Portuguese medieval cancioneiros (Dinis, 1894) and lectured on Portuguese literature at the Modern Language Association in the 1890S. Because of his great interest in Brazil, John Casper Branner, president of Stanford University, published A Brief Grammar of the Portuguese Language in 1910. Professor John W. Burnam of the University of Cincinnati published transcribed facsimiles of Portuguese manuscripts from 1912 to 1925. Professor J. D. M. Ford of Harvard dedicated much of his career to Camoes and the Lusiads, which he edited in 1940. AMERICAN SCHOOL OF PORTUGUESE PHILOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS In the period before 1950, research activities in medieval Portuguese linguistics amounted to the creation of a school of U.S. specialists in Portuguese historical philology and linguistics. Professor Lloyd Kasten of the University of Wisconsin- Madison inaugurated the Spanish medieval dictionary project and later directed the Center of Luso-Brazilian Studies. Professor Edwin B. Williams of the University of Pennsylvania taught Portuguese and published the very influential book From Latin to Portuguese (1938), textbook to a generation of students. The Pennsylvania Series in Romance Languages and Literatures published paleographic editions of Portuguese texts by scholars such as Richard D. Abraham (Life ofBarlaam and Josaphat, 1938), Harald J. Russo (Morphology and Syntax of the Leal Conselheiro, 1942), Kimberly Roberts (Orthography, Phonology and Word Study of the Leal Conselheiro, 1940), and Henry Hare Carter (diplomatic edition of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, 1941). Renowned scholars such as Leo Spitzer and Yakov Malkiel published extensively in the 1930S and 1940S on Portuguese linguistics. The philological approach also influenced early studies of Brazilian literature, culture, and history. Professor J. H. D. Allen, who published articles on Portuguese linguistics circa 1940, later taught Brazilian literature to a generation of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana. His Literature, Culture, and Civilization 95 peers included Norman P. Sacks, who studied Portuguese and Spanish etymologies, Stanley Rose, Hensley C. Woodbridge, Marvin Rainey, and others. Earl W. Thomas, who wrote a dissertation on pronunciation in Minas Gerais (1947), later authored an essay on the history of Brazilian literature (in Modern Brazil, 1971), and Gerald Moser studied North American loan words in Brazilian Portuguese (1950), for example, before becoming a specialist on Portuguese Africa. Francis M. Rogers, who received his doctoral degree from Harvard in 1940, joined an interest in phonology with the literary and cultural history of the Portuguese expansion . Linguists continued to make essential contributions to graduate faculties in...