Brazilian literature - Cristo Raul

20 BRAZILIAN LITERATURE
portant consideration for us is that the law of change is
operating, and that the change is in the direction of inde-
pendence. Much has been written upon the subject of
nationalism in art—too much, indeed,—and of this, alto-
gether too large a part has been needlessly obscured by
the fatuities of the narrowly nationalistic mind. There Is,
of course, such a thing as national character, though even
this has been overdone by writers until the traits thus
considered have been so stencilled upon popular thought
that they resemble rather caricatures than characteristics.
True natlonahsm in literature is largely a product of the
writer's unconscious mind; it is a spontaneous manifesta-
tion, and no Intensity of set purpose can create It unless
the psychological substratum is there. For the rest,
literature belongs to art rather than to nationality, to
esthetics rather than to politics and geography. ^® The
consideration of literature by nations, then, is itself the
province of the historian of Ideas; It is, however, a useful
method of co-ordinating our knowledge and of explaining
the personality of a country. If I bring up the matter
here at all it Is because such a writer as Sylvlo Romero,
intent upon emphasizing national themes, now and again
distorts the image of his subject, mistaking civic virtue
19 The wise Goethe onjce said to Eckermann: "The poet, as a man
and citizen, will love his native land; but the native land of his poetic
powers and poetic action is the good, noble and beautiful, which is confined
to no particular province or country, and which he seizes upon
and forms wherever he finds it. Therein is he like the eagle, who hovers
with free gaze over whole countries, and to whom it is of no consequence
whether the hare on which he pounces is running in Prussia or in
Saxony. . . . And then, what is meant by love of one's country? What
is meant by patriotic deeds? If the poet has employed a life in battling
with pernicious prejudice, in setting aside narrow views, in enlightening
the minds, purifying the tastes, ennobling the feelings and thoughts of
his countrymen, what better could he have done? how could he have
acted more patriotically?