The book “O movimento modernista no Brasil”, published in Cadernos de Cultura e Pensamento, takes a look at Mário de Andrade (1893-1945) in his final years, with two essays and two interviews published between 1939 and 1944. One of them, an interview conducted for the magazine Diretrizes in 1944, shows the writer’s political thinking in a very forceful way. We reproduce it here.
The book “O movimento modernista no Brasil”, published in Cadernos de Cultura e Pensamento, takes a look at Mário de Andrade (1893-1945) in his final years, with two essays and two interviews published between 1939 and 1944. One of them, an interview conducted for the magazine Diretrizes in 1944, shows the writer’s political thinking in a very forceful way. We reproduce it here.
An ever-present figure in the literary events of the last twenty years, Mário de Andrade, the admirable writer of Macunaíma, has had his name thrown around a lot lately with the publication of his preface to Otávio de Freitas Junior’s book – a strong and sincere page of profession of democratic faith, full of the most courageous confessions and affirmations ever made in public by Brazilian intellectuals of the moment.
Contacted by Diretrizes in São Paulo, Mário de Andrade, in the interview we publish here, once again reaffirms his views, openly condemning all the artists and intellectuals who, in various ways, have been collaborating with fascists or para-fascists, the latter recently denounced in a speech by Gilberto Freyre.
Given the sincerity of his statements and the seriousness of the accusations made by the writer from São Paulo, this interview with Mário de Andrade is bound to have a major national repercussion. In short, it is a tremendous libel against the “large part of the Brazilian intelligentsia that has sold out to the masters of life”.
In the preface to Otávio de Freitas Junior’s book, Mário de Andrade wrote some very serious things in an almost pathetic tone. Things that need to be repeated. “I affirm” (I’m quoting the great writer from São Paulo) ”that today’s youth is in possession of a truth. All of us, but all of us, intellectuals and leaders, know that the young people who are now between twenty and thirty years old are in possession of a single truth. Those who are unaware of this truth are pretending to be unaware of it. And there are also many… the others. They are the dirty ones, who have sold out, taking the side of the counter-truth. But they themselves, as much as the worthy ones, are shouting the existence of this truth through their eyes, their hands and their pores. And young people want to exclaim the truth that is about to arrive, but they can’t. Young people are choking. Young people are choking and swallowing deafly. But it’s not out of ignorance, inadvertence or carelessness that youth has choked. Youth hasn’t choked. Youth choked. All this, let’s face it, is serious, very serious indeed. The words are exact, astonishingly exact. The youth wants to speak and cannot. It has a bone in its throat. And that’s why Mário de Andrade used the ugly and disused verb “regougar” so well. Only a verb like that could define the state of mind of youth. Only young people? No. Young, mature and old. Everyone “regougar”. There’s nothing to do but “regougar”. Oh, how good it is to “water”! In the literary sector, something else happens, which is just as amazing. Those who don’t “water” swear at each other, waste energy foolishly. And it is with infinite sadness that we see the clean name of a great poet attacked in a sterile and silly argument, reminiscent of the famous “war of rosemary and marjoram”. Calm down, people. Why discuss soccer and silent movies at a time like this? These little discussions have only served to increase the confusion, which has led us to conjugate, in a strange and sometimes tragicomic way, the infamous verb “regougar”. So let’s “regouge” with decency.
I’ve started this introduction to let you know that I had an interview with Mário de Andrade, which has nothing to do with the literary wars that are currently taking place between the “innocents” of various beaches in Rio de Janeiro. The coincidence with well-known people and facts is purely occasional and inevitable. That’s why I want to make it clear that I sought out the author of Macunaíma with no ulterior motives. Mário de Andrade’s words are harsh and will hurt a lot of people. Patience. They are words that needed to be heard. This interview is very much a definition of an artist’s attitude towards war, a sort of Code of Ethics. Few people like the great poet and critic from São Paulo would be better suited to the difficult task, which I have transformed into the central theme of this article. Mário de Andrade’s literary life has been a constant struggle. The critical and polemical articles he wrote in newspapers and magazines would make up more than six volumes, the most important of which will be published in books, in the edition of the Complete Works of Mário de Andrade, an initiative of Livraria Martins. It was not without reason that he was called the “pope of modernism”. I agree that the nickname is bombastic, but there is no doubt that it indicates the role of the writer: his line of conduct, his prodigious action, his faith in literature, his moral value. For all these reasons, Mário must be considered the most important figure among the movement’s agitators. But that’s not all. Today, more than twenty years after the famous Modern Art Week, we can see that it was his work that found the greatest resonance with the younger generation, precisely those who are now in their twenties and thirties, the “choked youngsters”. I think that by saying this I have sufficiently explained the reason for this interview, which I think is very timely. One of the most opportune that could be done at this time.
The status of “pope” (sorry, Mário) doesn’t give anyone immunity. Mário de Andrade doesn’t live on an altar, permanently deified by young people. He doesn’t live in a bubble. The writer acts, is acting. He never refuses the new. His word is always listened to with respect, because it comes from him. So it was with the guys from Clima magazine, whose introductory article, written by Mário de Andrade, contains a great political and human meaning. It’s called “A elegia de abril”. It sounds like the title of a poem. The article is a call to responsibility. The writer doesn’t believe in the men of his generation, he puts his faith in the young. He punishes himself. Perhaps it’s because he thinks he’s accomplished too little that he puts so much faith in the young. Ah, the choking young men who “regurgitate”. However, Mário de Andrade has already done a lot. The significance of his literary work is immense, breaking new ground in poetry, short stories, novels, criticism, folklore and music. Above all, in matters of style and the form of literary expression, I mean the technique of writing. Mário de Andrade is very much a master of the new generations. But after all, this introduction is getting too long. What about the interview? Let’s get to it.
THE INTERVIEW
Although the signs of his long illness were still very visible on his pale face, Mário de Andrade seemed refreshed when I went to see him one morning at his house in Rua Lopes Chaves, in the Barra Funda neighborhood of São Paulo. It’s a simple house, with no luxury. But it’s full of paintings, books and music. Lhote, Picasso, Portinari, Segall. Not to mention the collection of drawings and prints, which number around 800. And the books? There’s everything. The main part is about art and literature. The music is downstairs, in a small room with a portrait of Beethoven. I know there are over twenty thousand pieces, all duly cataloged in Mário de Andrade’s library. The writer welcomes me, at first, in a room on the upper floor, where I saw, for the first time, the paintings by Anita Malfatti: “The Yellow Man” and “The Russian Schoolgirl”, which caused such a stir in the golden days of modernism. Anita Malfatti’s exhibition, considered to be the start of the movement, was a scandal. Monteiro Lobato wrote a violent, very wrong article against the painting. I take a good look at “The Yellow Man”. No matter how hard I look, I can’t find anything special. Without being academic, it’s a normal painting. Why would it have aroused such fury in Monteiro Lobato? That’s something I don’t understand.
– You think it’s normal, don’t you? That means we didn’t do modernism in vain. For the time, “The Yellow Man” was crazy. Few understood it, almost no one accepted it. Anita is a pioneer.
The interview begins with a detour. I found the writer more loquacious than ever, delighted with the progress of his illness (a duodenal ulcer, for those who want to know). During the days he was in bed, one month precisely, Mário de Andrade didn’t interrupt his journalistic activity, writing a long article on music every Thursday for Folha da Manhã, in São Paulo. He now wrote regularly for Correio da Manhã. He shows me his first article, published in the Rio newspaper. It’s about Shostacovitch, the Soviet musician who wrote a symphony celebrating the heroism of the defenders of Leningrad and the Hymn to the United Nations, a more recent composition I hadn’t heard of.
– In the article on Shostacovich, I return to an old refrain of mine: interested art. I think that artists, even if they want to, should never make disinterested art. The artist may think that he serves no one, that he only serves Art, so to speak. That’s the mistake, the illusion. Basically, the artist is being an instrument in the hands of the powerful. The worst thing is that the honest artist, in his illusion of free art, doesn’t realize that he is serving as an instrument, often for terrible things. This is the case with apolitical writers, who are unconscious servants of fascism, capitalism and fifth columnism.
Mário de Andrade explains, like a good São Paulo native.
RESPONSIBILITY
The conversation turns to the controversy between “pure art” and “interested art”. Mário de Andrade says what he thinks about it:
– Until the 18th century, the intellectual was a servant of the princes. He was therefore tied to his patrons. He was paid to praise. With the 19th century came free art. The intellectual freed himself. And with freedom, he became unbridled. He became irresponsible. That was his big mistake. Freedom doesn’t mean irresponsibility. That’s because there is a relationship between the writer and the public, a commitment. It is the public, or rather society, that protects the writer, that gives him everything, including money, even applause, two things that are indispensable to anyone’s life. And therefore the artist too. Because I’m referring to all artists in general. Not just writers, prose writers and poets, whether fiction writers or not. But also painters, sculptors, architects and musicians. All of them, all of us, are responsible. To the public, to society. The writer, then, is responsible even for the spelling of words, let alone for what they convey. If society is in danger, it follows that the writer has an undeniable obligation to defend it. Unfortunately, not many of us have been able to do this. Some because they don’t have a professional conscience. Others because they have no conscience at all. There is no escape. No one can cross their arms and remain above social competition. So it is with war, in the struggle of democracies against fascisms of all kinds. War is not a theater that we can watch comfortably, as if we were sitting in a box seat. Everyone takes part in the struggle, even against their will. Whether they like it or not. And if that’s the case, the writer must inevitably serve one side or the other. Brazilian intellectuals, who continue to collaborate with fascist newspapers, need to be convinced that they are wrong. They can’t just write to earn 200 cruzeiros for an article and then blazon away that they’re still free. They’re not, that’s the truth. They can be free on the first or second article. Little by little, a thousand invisible strings entangle the poor person until one day they find themselves lost. Sad to say. But this is the case with the majority of Brazilian writers who collaborate with fascist newspapers. Many of these writers, I know, are not fascists. They will end up being. At least they are already serving fascism.
– But you too, Mário, collaborate with the magazine Atlântico.
– That’s true. I published an article in Atlântico. I confess I’m very sorry. When I realized the mistake I was making, it was too late. I recognize that I made a mistake. I give my word of honor that I will never fall for another one.
EXPERIENCES
The subject remains the same.
– You can see that I’m speaking from experience. But I want to show that I have been consistent. I don’t make pure art. I never have. In this respect, I feel I’m at odds with dear friends and comrades, friends and comrades whom I consider to be masters. I’ve always been against disinterested art. For me, art has to serve. I can say that since my first book I’ve been making interested art. At that time, in 1917, if I’d wanted to, I could have come up with a less bad book of verse to appear in public. I had notebooks and notebooks full of sonnets and poetry, which I thought were better than Há uma gota de sangue em cada poema. But no. I felt I needed to publish my little book of pacifist poems, written under the emotions of the 1914 war. They seemed more useful than sonnets and rhymed poetry.
I remember that Mário de Andrade’s debut book bears the pseudonym Mário Sobral. Why the pseudonym?
– Out of shyness – replies the poet more than quickly. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m shy. My outbursts don’t prove any courage. They’re products of my introspective life. I fill myself up, I fill myself up. Suddenly, I burst.
And that’s how he makes an interesting confession to me:
– It’s quite possible that I would never have published a single line if I hadn’t been sure that my literature could be useful. In fact, I didn’t intend to publish any poems from Pauliceia desvairada. Until one day I realized that my poems had the capacity to irritate the bourgeoisie. That was enough. For the rest of my literary career, I followed the same line of conduct. I only publish what I can use. All my works have some kind of utilitarian intention. The purely aesthetic things I did for a while, I destroyed. They only interested me as an acquisition of personal technique.
And Mário de Andrade repeats:
– Art has to serve. I’ve been saying that for many years. Admittedly, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. But with my “interested art”, I know I haven’t made a mistake. I’ve always considered the ultimate problem for Brazilian intellectuals to be the search for a working tool that would bring them closer to the people. This proletarian notion of art, from which I have never strayed, is what led me, from the very beginning, to search for a way to express myself in Brazilian. Sometimes at the sacrifice of the work of art itself. To clarify, I quote from my novel Amar, verbo intransitivo. Had it not been for my deliberate desire to write Brazilian, I imagine I would have written a better novel. The subject matter was pretty good. But the subject matter interested me less than the language in that book. Another example is Macunaíma. I wanted to write a book in all the regional languages of Brazil. The result was that, as you’ve already said, I made myself incomprehensible even to Brazilians. I know that my literature is very experimental. That matters to me. I don’t regret that.
CONSCIOUSNESS
For Mário de Andrade, what matters most of all is acting. Hence his admiration for Valentim Magalhães, a mediocre but active writer.
– Valentim Magalhães did the devil. He got involved in every literary movement, he told me.
But the case of the poet of Remate de males is very different. Valentim Magalhães perhaps only acted according to his boisterous temperament. Mário, on the other hand, always acted consciously. You could put it like that when you once again refer to modernism:
– I knew that it wasn’t enough to be spontaneous. It was also necessary to have a professional conscience. When I used “me” at the beginning of sentences, it wasn’t just because I liked writing differently. I knew what I was doing. That’s why I studied. I honestly looked for a way to write in Brazilian. I think I found that way. At least I helped pave the way.
– You once announced Gramatiquinha da língua brasileira. Why didn’t you ever publish that book?
– Not of the language. Of Brazilian speech. I didn’t intend to create a Brazilian language. No writer has ever created a language. I announced the book, it’s true, but I never wrote it. I announced the book because I thought it was necessary for the modern movement. To give more importance to the things we wanted to defend. It’s still too early to write a Grammar of the Brazilian language. I wanted to warn against the abuses of wrong writing. We were falling into the opposite excess, as one of the editors of Estética rightly observed, I can’t remember if it was Sérgio Buarque de Holanda or Prudente de Morais Neto. We were creating the “Brazilian error”. When I talk about writing correctly, I extend the question to the problem of spelling. I consider it a moral problem. It’s one more responsibility added to the craft of writing. I’m not interested in discussing whether this or that spelling is good or not. The main thing is that we have a spelling. It doesn’t matter if you have to spell “horse” with three “eles”. What we need is an end to the mess. There’s nothing more irritatingly false than English spelling, for example. I don’t understand why the word “right” is spelled with “g-h-t”. Yet that’s how it is. Spelling it differently in England or the United States is a diploma of ignorance. Not here. Everyone writes the way they want. The state of Bahia has an “h”. Guanabara Bay doesn’t. I believe that the spelling issue has contributed enormously to mental disorder in Brazil. And in a way, it has prevented many writers from forming a true professional conscience.
PARALLEL
We’re back to talking about “interested art”. I want to know what the relationship is between “interested art” and the freedom to think and write, in Mário de Andrade’s view. Then the writer didn’t want to talk any more. He preferred to write the answer. The next day, I went to pick it up. It is as follows:
– The subject is so serious and so complex that I would be frivolous to summarize it all in an interview. It’s a bit unpleasant to seem to be advertising your own work, but the answer to certain aspects of your question is implicit in some of my essays, collected in Baile das quatro artes and Aspectos da literatura brasileira. Any psychological analysis, however slight, of the artistic manifestation, convinces us that art is always interested, and that every work of art is, in the final analysis, a “work of circumstance”, that is, born of an occasional circumstance, social or individualistic, to which the artist attributes his interest. In this sense, it is not the art that changes, but the quality of the interest that leads the artist to make it. It is almost exclusively in Christian civilization that the inflation of individualism has allowed this pernicious vacillation of quality in interest which, from being social as it always was, has often become confidential and individualistic. Furthermore, essays such as “Elegia de abril” and “O movimento modernista” prove that I am no mystic of freedom of thought, but I am convinced that notions such as this or democracy imply a certain number of principles without which they cease to exist. You can’t imagine democracy without public opinion, just as you can’t imagine freedom of thought without acquiring a technique of thinking, which is much less common than you might think.
And to explain further what was said above:
– And indeed, when I consider that a large part of the Brazilian intelligentsia has sold out to the masters of life, I am far from saying that it has lowered itself to the point of signing a transaction with notarized contracts. But because it doesn’t have a legitimate technique for thinking, this intelligentsia easily gives itself over to sophistry and confusionism of a thousand and one kinds, of which this so-called “pure art” is malignantly the greatest. You see, I’m not denying the possibility or the value of what we call “pure art”, I’m saying that the intellectual uses it to safeguard himself and get rid of his moral duties not only as a man, but as an artist. And the intellectual retreats into the pseudo-purity of his thought – thought!… – while life becomes more and more infamous outside, and man more and more enslaved. But the intellectual imagines that he (you see: only he!) is not a slave, because his thought, his art is free! Can’t he compose a “pure art” symphony, a sonnet about love or about nothing, a painting with fish and daisies? Yes, he can: “My art is free”! And the intellectual pretends that he has freedom of thought, simply because he doesn’t have enough thinking skills to give him the courage to take his thought to the end. Because in reality his pseudo-freedom consisted of sequestering from his intellectual manifestations all those momentous subjects, whose quality of interest was social, which would make him unpleasant with the head of the office where he works, the director of the newspaper where he writes, and even bring him complications with the gestapos.
PARTICIPATION
Still in response to the same question, Mário de Andrade continues:
– However, the intellectual doesn’t stop there. His enslavement to the masters of life is even more confusing and more indecent. He also “participates”. Hasn’t he already said in an article that he was anti-Nazi? Hasn’t he applauded the whole world the other day because Brazil entered the war? Hasn’t he already paid his tax? Didn’t he already think, in that bar conversation, that we should guard against the possible future imperialism of the big democracies? He’s already done all that, the hero! And the intellectual rests, imagining that his duty is done, only because he has fulfilled half (the easiest half) of his responsibility: his responsibility to himself. But his responsibility to his audience, that he has not and will not fulfill. Because it is this that is difficult, this that imposes a thousand sacrifices (not the least of which, I admit, is the sacrifice of his own art), this responsibility that imposes the exercise of his non-conformity. Because the intellectual’s non-conformism doesn’t just lie in shouting and signing: “I’m anti-Nazi!”, “I’m for democracy!”, I’m this or that. That’s just being chatty. Non-conformism implies not just reaction, but action. And it is in this action that the public responsibility of the intellectual lies. Art is exactly like the professorship, a way of teaching, a proposition of truths, the agent’s desire for a better life. The artist may not be political as a man, but the work of art is always political as a teaching and lesson; and when it doesn’t serve one ideology it serves another, when it doesn’t serve one party it serves its opposite.
The writer makes his point even more specific:
– No more talk of “thesis”, my friend. Let’s face it, art is disinterested, the artist is usually a separate being, an individual who by the nature of his “status” may not be a participant, he may be a “clerc”. If anyone wants, I’ll grant them all this. But “normally”, I mean. I accept that an intellectual should exempt himself from the Franco-Prussian war, the Russo-Japanese war, and even, more rarely, the Transvaal war or the Sino-Japanese war. I accept that a Brazilian intellectual hesitates to take sides in the face of Palmares. I accept, understand, approve of and applaud his direct non-participation in revolutions such as those of 1924, 1930 and even more so 1932. But while these wars and revolutions may be within the normal conditions of social organization of a given civilization, the same is not true in certain absolutely abnormal conditions of life, in which it is the very essence of a civilization that is in peril, as in the struggle between Christians and Moors, or the very nature of man is in peril, as in the current struggle against Nazism.
Finally, he makes his point very clear:
– At times like these there can be no doubt: the problem of man becomes so decisive that there is no longer a problem of the artist. There is no longer a professional problem. The artist not only has to, but must, give up on himself. Faced with a universal situation of humanity such as the one we are going through, the professional problems of individuals become so lowly as to be disgusting. And the artist who, at the moment, puts his problems as an intellectual on top of his problems as a man, is safeguarding himself in a confusion that does him no credit.
Directrices, January 6, 1944