Joao Cabral De Melo Neto and the Poetics of Bullfighting (Critical Essay)

THE work of Brazilian poet Joao Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999) has been described by critics as rational, rigorous, and unadorned--or in Cabral's words, "mineral." (2) Standing in stark contrast to the effusive lyricism associated with the figure of the Romantic poet, Cabral, like the stone he describes in his poem "Pequena ode mineral," aspires to a tight internal order in which "nada se gasta / mas permanence." (3) Indeed, in reading Cabral one notes a consistent emphasis on the poetic values of economy, control, and purity of style, and a concurrent rejection of the Romantic values of inspiration and fluidity. As a poet interested in describing concrete objects and spaces, Cabral often situates the poetic qualities he champions in Brazil's arid northeastern interior, the sertao, which in turn provides him with the setting for some of his best known poems, including "A educacao pela pedra" and "Uma faca so lamina." (4) While the Pernambuco-born Cabral was intimately involved with the Brazilian northeast, the sertao does not constitute the only backdrop for his poetry. As a Brazilian diplomat, Cabral lived intermittently in Spain beginning in 1947, working at consulates in Barcelona, Seville and Cadiz, and traveling extensively within the country. Spain's landscape and everyday life came to exert a powerful influence on Cabral's poetry, and Spanish themes began appearing in his work with the collection Paisagens com figuras (1954-55). As Luiz Costa Lima and many other critics have argued, Cabral's inclusion of Spain in his poetry was not merely a function of his travels. In Lima's estimation, Cabral found in Spain an environment that exhibited similar poetic and existential qualities to those he associated with the sertao, namely an "arid nakedness" (Lima 336-37). Indeed, Cabral frequently juxtaposes the two environments, often mixing Spanish and nordestino motifs in his poems, and suggesting that the two landscapes have a common character, which, as he writes in "Sevilha em casa," are "de uma so maconaria" (638). (5)