Tropical ginsberg

78
Deslocar a arte do espaço no qual sempre existiu
como objeto sacralizado – museu, biblioteca
etc.[sic] – para integrá-la no quotidiano, nas ruas,
nas praças públicas, 178
Or in other words, reach the masses. This desacralizing process of
producing a much refined and “sacralized” art, for the masses, was
definetely a giant step into uncharted lands, which took a lot of guts.
After all, to mix the “marginal” with the “elite” was all but a calm and
easy thing to do.
To bring the “elite” to the “marginal” is the same as releasing an
innocent ten year old Manhattan school girl, fresh out of a fifth-grade
class, into some grotesque, and smelly, Harlem street; it is quite grim.
Dr. Frankenstein, the “arian,” suddenly has a horrific epiphany: his
creation, the monster, the untouchable, can easily overpower him. That
is to bring the “elite” to the “marginal,” and that is why the elite panics
with the mere thought that it could happen. The suturing connection
between the New Criticism and the MPB artists is quite evident when
we analyze what they were trying to maintain: traditional elitist
standards of art. The New Criticism critics could not conceive that a
new literary movement and cultural revolution were erupting with every
“marginal” stanza that Ginsberg made and said, just as the MPB artists
could not admit that the “marginal” sound the Tropicalistas were doing
would become a musical and cultural revolution.
The poetry analysis conducted by the New Criticism has left us
with a very elaborate research into poetry on account of having
approached art as science. However, this analysis becomes extremist
when it relegates to a second plan the importance of the author, and the
contextualization of his/her art, while trying to create a pantheon of
poems flying around through time with no author to call creator. God
might know what critics would say about “The Hollow Men,” had it
been penned by Hitler with another title, “Mein Kampf.” To approach
poetry as science is to overlook its essence, which can hardly be
described by words. If we were to approach the poetry of Ginsberg and
the Tropicalistas’ songs strickly for the purpose of textual analysis, we
would probably be grasping less than half of what Allen Ginsberg and
178 Hoisel, Evelina. Supercaos: Os Estilhaços da cultura em Panamérica e Nações Unidas. Rio
de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1980. 41. Which reads, “Dislocate art from the space in
which it always existed as a sacralized object – museum, library, etc. – to integreate it in the
daily life, on streets, public parks.” Author’s translation.