Arian Suassuna he was a writer, playwright and poet, having been best known for his prose production, although he risked writing verse throughout his life. One of the literary exponents of northeastern culture, Ariano broke regional borders and fell in the favor of the Brazilian public, who surrendered to the sympathy of two of his greatest characters, João Grilo and Chicó, of the theater play in the form of an auto, Compadecida's Report.
Read too: João Cabral de Melo Neto – known as a poet-engineer thanks to the characteristics of his poetry
Biography of Ariano Suassuna
Arian Suassuna was born in Nossa Senhora das Neves, today João Pessoa, in Paraíba, on June 16, 1927. Son of an influential politician, João Suassuna, whose murder was motivated by political motives, Ariano saw his life marked by the tragic episode and, until the end of his days, defended the innocence of his father, accused of being the mastermind of the murder against João Pessoa, then governor of Paraíba.
![Ariano Suassuna is a very important name in modern Brazilian theatrical text. [1]](/f/95ae470135dc92c8198ae6af291310d4.jpg)
In 1942, joined the Faculty of Law and, while studying the laws, he wrote his first plays for theatre, staged at the Teatro do Estudante Pernambucano, a space created by him and his friend Hermilio Borba Filho. He did little and, in 1957, became a teacher of the Departments of History and Theory of Art and Artistic Expression of the Federal University of Pernambuco, position in which he remained for 31 years.
Armory Movement
Launched on October 18, 1970, the Armorial Movement, created by Ariano Suassuna, was a artistic movement that presented the sertão as a cultural and playful universe, space previously placed in the background on the Brazilian culture. The intention was to build an art essentially scholar through authentically national elements, merging the popular culture with the intricate erudite universe. The Armorial Movement was also aimed at subvert the regionalist aesthetic of the 1930s, too preoccupied with sociopolitical issues.
while in the Sertões- founding work of the Armorial Movement - Euclides da Cunha constructed an image of the countryman completely opposite to the image of the gaucho, seen as a brave and fearless man, in Ariano's work that same countryman was transported to a mythical universe, removed from their ordinary life and placed at the center of a playful narrative, thus rescuing the magical spirit of the Romanceiro Popular do North East. The Armorial Movement, much more than a literary aesthetic, was an artistic movement that included different types of art, such as music, dance, theater and architecture.
Work by Ariano Suassuna
Arian wrote several parts, between them A woman dressed in the sun, Singing the harps of Zion, The clay men, Auto by João da Cruz and Auto da Compadecida, certainly Ariano's most famous work, considered by the theorist and theater critic Sábato Magaldi as the most popular text in modern Brazilian theater.
Between the works of fiction they are Fernando and Isaura, Romance d'A Pedra do Reino and the Prince of Blood goes and returns, The childhoods of Quaderna and History of The Beheaded King in the Caatingas of the Sertão. Chronologically, Ariano Suassuna was considered a member of the 1945 modernist movement, although in his work references to the Symbolism and even to Baroque.
See too: Cora Coralina - just like Suassuna, it was not part of a specific aesthetic
Death of Ariano Suassuna
Arian Suassuna passed away on July 23, 2014, aged 87, in the city of Recife, capital of Pernambuco, due to cardiac arrest.
When I die, don't let go of my Horse
on the stones of my burned Pasto:
lash your vaunted Back,
with the Golden Spur, until you kill him.
One of my children must ride it
in a greenish leather saddle,
that drags across the stony and brown ground
Copper plates, bells and clappers.
So, with the ray and the percussive copper,
hoofbeats, blood of the Brown,
maybe pretend the sound of molten gold
that, in vain - Foolish and vagabond blood -
tried to forge, in my strange singing,
to the complexion of my Beast and the Sun of the World!
(Sonnet “Tombstone”, by Ariano Suassuna)
Ariano traveled throughout Brazil giving his "show classes" in theaters and universities, defending ardently Brazilian culture and national identity against the cultural garbage imported from the States United.
In one of his most famous phrases, Ariano stated: “Art for me is not a market product. Call me romantic. Art for me is a mission, a vocation and a party”, thus summarizing his intense and important trajectory in Brazilian Literature.
Image credit
[1]Wilson Dias/ABr / commons
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/literatura/ariano-suassuna.htm