Cecília Meireles
Encyclopedia
Cecília Benevides de Carvalho Meireles (Rio de Janeiro
, 1901–1964) was a Brazil
ian writer
and educator, known principally as a poet
. She is a canonical name of Brazilian Modernism
, one of the great female poets in the Portuguese language
, and is widely considered the best poetess from Brazil, though she combatted the word "poetess" because of gender discrimination.
She traveled in the Americas
in the 1940s, visiting the United States
, Mexico
, Argentina
, Uruguay
and Chile
. In the summer of 1940 she gave lectures at the University of Texas, Austin
. She wrote two poems about her time in the capital of Texas, and a long (800 lines) very socially aware poem "USA 1940", which was published posthumously. As a journalist
her columns (crônicas, or chronicles) focused most often on education
, but also on her trips abroad in the western hemisphere, Portugal
, other parts of Europe, Israel
, and India
(where she received an honorary doctorate).
As a poet, her style was mostly neosymbolist
and her themes included ephemeral time
and the contemplative life
. Even though she was not concerned with local color, native vernacular, or experiments in (popular) syntax, she is considered one of the most important poets of the second phase of the Brazilian Modernism, known for nationalistic
vanguardism
. As a teacher
she did much to promote educational reforms and advocated the construction of children's libraries. Between 1935 and 1938 she taught at the short-lived federal-district university
in Rio.
, died three months before her birth. Mathide Benevides, her mother, who was an elementary school
teacher, died when Cecília was three. The three other children of this marriage died before Cecília was born. She was brought up by a Portuguese grandmother in Rio, who came from the Azores
and told her stories from her birthplace. These stories later found their way to Cecilia's poetry. From her nanny
, Pedrina, Cecília learned Brazilian folk songs and game
s. Meireles started to compose poems at the age of nine. She attended normal school in Rio from 1913 to 1916, and after graduating, she was trained as a teacher. However, she continued to study language
s, literature
, educational theory, music
, and folklore
. In 1922 she married the Portuguese painter
Fernando Correia Dias; they had three daughters: Maria Matilde, Maria Elvira, and Maria Fernanda. The latter is a Brazilian actress who starred in plays and soap opera
s from the 1970s until the early 1980; she toured U.S. universities to present readings and musical settings of her mother's poems by her son. Mr. Dias, Cecilia's husband, who suffered from acute depression
, committed suicide
in 1935. Meireles later married agronomist
Heitor Grillo, with whom she visited the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C.
in 1940. On her initiative the first children's library in Brazil was founded in 1934; she also wrote several children's books. That same year she lectured on Brazilian literature and popular culture in Portugal. Her book Samba
, Batuque
& Macumba
was translated into English in 1983.
As a poet Meireles made her debut at the age of eighteen, with Espectros (1919). It has been described as "an airy and vague poetry, languid and fluid, set in an atmosphere of shadows and dreams." The collection of seventeen sonnet
s dealt with various historical personages. Although her next collections included lyrics in free verse
, she still preferred traditional forms and symbolism. Between 1919 and 1927 she contributed to the magazine
s Árvore Nova and Terra do Sol. She was a key figure in the spiritual and transcendental magazine Festa. The Festa poets supported more traditional expression and universality than the futurists and avant-garde
writers of São Paulo
, whose Modern Art Week in 1922 caused much controversy. Meireles always retained symbolist
traits. Especially Portuguese poetry
interested her. She visited Portugal in 1934 and lectured there on Brazilian literature at the universities of Lisbon and Coimbra.
After 14 years without publishing a book of poetry, Meireles published one of her major works, Viagem [Voyage] (1939), which marked her poetic maturity. The book had received the annual Poetry Prize from the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1938. The title refers to a spiritual journey where life and poetry join together. Meireles was a devout Catholic
, but did not emphasize her religious or social stands. In the 1940s Meireles traveled widely and the sea
became for her an important image. Mar Absoluto (1942) was sea poetry with the qualities of so-called pure poetry. In 1953 she participated in a symposium on the work of Gandhi, and India had a great influence on her work. She had taught herself both Hindi
and Sanskrit
. Romanceiro da Inconfidência (1953) was written in the style of medieval Iberian
ballad
s. The work draws its subject from the first colonial attempt at Brazilian Independence
, in Minas Gerais
in 1789, and centers on the leader of the uprising, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, who was hailed as another Jesus Christ. Giroflê, Giroflá (1956) was based on the author's journeys to India and Italy
.
Meireles was a prolific contributor to Brazilian periodicals, and for a time she served as education editor of Rio's Diario de Noticías. She translated into Brazilian Portuguese such diverse writers as Maeterlinck, Lorca
, Anouilh, Ibsen, Tagore
, Rilke, Virginia Woolf
, and Pushkin. Her other works include plays and children's books. Cecília Meireles died of cancer
in Rio de Janeiro on November 9, 1964. During her career Meireles was affected by many of the literary movements of her time. However, her poetry always remained intensely personal.
In October 2009 she was one of the three featured authors at the Primeiro Congresso de Escritoras Brasileiras em Nova Iorque (First Congress of Brazilian Women Writers in New York) at the Centro Cultural Brasil / Brazilian Endowment for the Arts in Midtown Manhattan
.
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, 1901–1964) was a Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and educator, known principally as a poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. She is a canonical name of Brazilian Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, one of the great female poets in the Portuguese language
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, and is widely considered the best poetess from Brazil, though she combatted the word "poetess" because of gender discrimination.
She traveled in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
in the 1940s, visiting the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. In the summer of 1940 she gave lectures at the University of Texas, Austin
Austin
Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas.Austin may also refer to:-In the United States:*Austin, Arkansas*Austin, Colorado*Austin, Chicago, Illinois*Austin, Indiana*Austin, Minnesota*Austin, Nevada*Austin, Oregon...
. She wrote two poems about her time in the capital of Texas, and a long (800 lines) very socially aware poem "USA 1940", which was published posthumously. As a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
her columns (crônicas, or chronicles) focused most often on education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, but also on her trips abroad in the western hemisphere, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, other parts of Europe, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(where she received an honorary doctorate).
As a poet, her style was mostly neosymbolist
Neosymbolism
Neosymbolism is a movement current in the visual arts genre. Active in the movement are artists in the USA, in Denmark, and in the Czech Republic.- History :...
and her themes included ephemeral time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
and the contemplative life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
. Even though she was not concerned with local color, native vernacular, or experiments in (popular) syntax, she is considered one of the most important poets of the second phase of the Brazilian Modernism, known for nationalistic
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
vanguardism
Vanguardism
In the context of revolutionary struggle, vanguardism is a strategy whereby an organization attempts to place itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology....
. As a teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
she did much to promote educational reforms and advocated the construction of children's libraries. Between 1935 and 1938 she taught at the short-lived federal-district university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
in Rio.
Biography
Cecília Meireles was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in the then Federal District. Her father, Carlos Alberto de Carvalho Meireles, who worked for Banco do BrasilBanco do Brasil
Banco do Brasil S.A. is the largest Brazilian and Latin American bank by assets, and the third by market value. The bank, headquartered in Brasília, was founded in 1808 and is the oldest active bank in Brazil — and one of the oldest financial institutions in the world.Banco do Brasil is controlled...
, died three months before her birth. Mathide Benevides, her mother, who was an elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
teacher, died when Cecília was three. The three other children of this marriage died before Cecília was born. She was brought up by a Portuguese grandmother in Rio, who came from the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
and told her stories from her birthplace. These stories later found their way to Cecilia's poetry. From her nanny
Nanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
, Pedrina, Cecília learned Brazilian folk songs and game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s. Meireles started to compose poems at the age of nine. She attended normal school in Rio from 1913 to 1916, and after graduating, she was trained as a teacher. However, she continued to study language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, educational theory, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, and folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. In 1922 she married the Portuguese painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
Fernando Correia Dias; they had three daughters: Maria Matilde, Maria Elvira, and Maria Fernanda. The latter is a Brazilian actress who starred in plays and soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
s from the 1970s until the early 1980; she toured U.S. universities to present readings and musical settings of her mother's poems by her son. Mr. Dias, Cecilia's husband, who suffered from acute depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
, committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in 1935. Meireles later married agronomist
Agronomist
An agronomist is a scientist who specializes in agronomy, which is the science of utilizing plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. An agronomist is an expert in agricultural and allied sciences, with the exception veterinary sciences.Agronomists deal with interactions between plants, soils, and...
Heitor Grillo, with whom she visited the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in 1940. On her initiative the first children's library in Brazil was founded in 1934; she also wrote several children's books. That same year she lectured on Brazilian literature and popular culture in Portugal. Her book Samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
, Batuque
Batuque
Batuque may refer to:* Batuque , a game once played in Brazil* Batuque, an Afro-Brazilian Religion of Orishas in south of Brasil, like Candomblé and Santeria, but different. with liturgy own....
& Macumba
Macumba
Macumba is a word of African origins. Various explanations of its meaning include "a musical instrument", the name of a Central African deity, and simply "magic". It was the name used for all Bantu religious practices mainly in Bahia Afro-Brazilian in the 19th Century...
was translated into English in 1983.
As a poet Meireles made her debut at the age of eighteen, with Espectros (1919). It has been described as "an airy and vague poetry, languid and fluid, set in an atmosphere of shadows and dreams." The collection of seventeen sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
s dealt with various historical personages. Although her next collections included lyrics in free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
, she still preferred traditional forms and symbolism. Between 1919 and 1927 she contributed to the magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s Árvore Nova and Terra do Sol. She was a key figure in the spiritual and transcendental magazine Festa. The Festa poets supported more traditional expression and universality than the futurists and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
writers of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, whose Modern Art Week in 1922 caused much controversy. Meireles always retained symbolist
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
traits. Especially Portuguese poetry
Portuguese poetry
-History:The earliest Portuguese poetry was produced in Galicia, today a Spanish province that shares some similarities with Portuguese culture. Like the troubadour culture in the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe, Galician-Portuguese poets sang the love for a woman, that often turned into...
interested her. She visited Portugal in 1934 and lectured there on Brazilian literature at the universities of Lisbon and Coimbra.
After 14 years without publishing a book of poetry, Meireles published one of her major works, Viagem [Voyage] (1939), which marked her poetic maturity. The book had received the annual Poetry Prize from the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1938. The title refers to a spiritual journey where life and poetry join together. Meireles was a devout Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
, but did not emphasize her religious or social stands. In the 1940s Meireles traveled widely and the sea
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
became for her an important image. Mar Absoluto (1942) was sea poetry with the qualities of so-called pure poetry. In 1953 she participated in a symposium on the work of Gandhi, and India had a great influence on her work. She had taught herself both Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
. Romanceiro da Inconfidência (1953) was written in the style of medieval Iberian
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s. The work draws its subject from the first colonial attempt at Brazilian Independence
Independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....
, in Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
in 1789, and centers on the leader of the uprising, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, who was hailed as another Jesus Christ. Giroflê, Giroflá (1956) was based on the author's journeys to India and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Meireles was a prolific contributor to Brazilian periodicals, and for a time she served as education editor of Rio's Diario de Noticías. She translated into Brazilian Portuguese such diverse writers as Maeterlinck, Lorca
Lorca
Lorca is a municipality and town in the autonomous community of Murcia in southeastern Spain, 36 miles southwest of the city of Murcia. It had a population of 92,694 in 2010, up from the 2001 census total of 77,477. Lorca is the municipality with the second-largest surface area in Spain with...
, Anouilh, Ibsen, Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, Rilke, Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, and Pushkin. Her other works include plays and children's books. Cecília Meireles died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in Rio de Janeiro on November 9, 1964. During her career Meireles was affected by many of the literary movements of her time. However, her poetry always remained intensely personal.
In October 2009 she was one of the three featured authors at the Primeiro Congresso de Escritoras Brasileiras em Nova Iorque (First Congress of Brazilian Women Writers in New York) at the Centro Cultural Brasil / Brazilian Endowment for the Arts in Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...
.
Sources
- Karen Peña, Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual: The Alternative Destinies of Gabriela Mistral, Cecilia Meireles, and Rosario Castellanos (2008);
- Darlene Sadlier, Imagery and Theme in the Poetry of Cecília Meireles (1983);
- John Nist, The Modernist Movement in Brazil (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967).
- Raymond Sayers, "The Poetic Universe of Cecilia Meireles." In Romance Studies Offered to Francis Rogers (1981)
- Marta Peixoto, "The Absent Body: Female Signature and Poetic Convention in Cecilia Meireles." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 65.1 (1988).
External links
- Cecília Meireles in Vidas Lusafonas