Brazilian literature - Cristo Raul

30
BRAZILIAN LITERATURE
Ale, ale, calunga,
Mussunga, mussunga-e. ^
On the whole, that same melancholy which is the hallmark
of so much Brazilian writing, is discernible in the
popular refrain. The themes are the universal ones of
love and fate, with now and then a flash of humour and
earthy practicality.
Romero, with his excessive fondness for categories (a
vice which with unconscious humour he was the very first
to flagellate), suggested four chief types of popular
poetry, (i) \ht romances a.nd xacaras, (2) the reisados
and chegancas, (3) the oracoes and parlendos, (4)
versos geraes or quandrinhas. In the same way the folk
tales are referred to Portuguese, native and African ori-
gin, with a more recent addition of mestico (hybrid,
mestee) material. "The Brazilian Sheherezade," writes
De Carvalho,^ "is more thoughtful than opulent, she educates
rather than dazzles. In the savage legends Nature
dominates man, and, as in the fables of y5^sop and La
Fontaine, it is the animals who are charged with reveal-
ing life's virtues and deficiencies through their ingenious
wiles. . . . To the native, as is gathered from his most
famous tales, skill was surely a better weapon than
strength." Long ago, the enthusiastic Denis, the first to
accord to Brazilian letters a treatment independent of
those of Portugal,^ had commented on the blending of
3 The frank, practical song, minus the African refrain, runs thus:
"You like me and I like you. If pa consents, oh my darling, I'll marry
you. ... If you'll give me my clothes and furnish my food, if you
pay all the household expenses, oh, my darling, I'll come to live with
you."
4 Op. Cit. P. 58.
^Resume de I'histoire Litteraire du Portugal su'wi du Resume de
I'histoire litteraire du Bresil. Ferdinand Denis. Paris, 1826. The
Brazilian section occupies pages 513-601.