Brazilian literature - Cristo Raul

6 BRAZILIAN LITERATURE
we aspire to the possession of the Infinite, only to lose
ourselves at once In the Nirvana of Inaction and daydreaming."
Benedlcto Costa ^ has likened this same
imagination to the Brazilian forest, with Its "disorder and
opulence. Its vigour and languor; trees that last for cen-
turies and flowers that bloom but a few moments; lianas
that live upon the sap of other growths; the brilliancy of
orchids, the voices of birds of Iridescent coloration, the
heat. . . . There Is In the soul of every Brazilian the
same contrasts that characterize the tropical forest." "*
Brazil, however. Is not all forest any more than. In-
tellectually, it Is all tropical confusion. There are
mountains and valleys and extensive coasts, and each
region has a distinguishing Influence upon the inhabitant.
Thus the chmate of the sertao ^ (Interior highlands) Is
less variable and far more salubrious than that of the
littoral. "Man here represents perfectly the traits of
3Le Roman au Bresil. Paris, 1918.
4 Sylvio Romero (See Lltteratura Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro, no
date, pages 45-46, chapter upon the poet Luiz Murat) refers in char-
acteristic fashion to the Brazilian habit of overstating the case of the
native imagination. There is no audacious flight, he declares; no soaring
of eagles and condors. "Whether we examine the popular litera-
ture or the cultured, we find overwhelming proof of this assertion.
Our popular novels and anonymous songs are scant in plot, ingenious
imaginings, marvelous imagery, which are so common in their Slavic,
Celtic, Greek and Germanic congeners. And the contribution brought
by the negroes and indigenous tribes are even poorer than the part
that came to us from the Portuguese. Cultivated literature . . . is even
inferior to the popular productions from the standpoint of the imagina-
tion. . . . Our
imagination, which is of simply decorative type, is the
imagination of lyric spirits, of the sweet, monodic poetry of new souls
and young peoples."
^Sertao. iLkerally, interior, midland part. It refers here to the
plateau of the Brazilian interior. In the opening pages of his excellent
A Brazilian Mystic, R. B. Cunninghame-Graham suggests as a periphrasis,
"wooded, back-lying highlands." The German hinterland conveys
something of the idea.