marioQuintana was born in 1906 and died in 1994. In addition to being a poet, he was a translator. He published his first book in 1938: The street of pinwheels. He received the Fernando Chinaglia, Machado de Assis, and Jabuti awards, in addition to the title of honorary citizen of Porto Alegre, the medal Negrinho do Pastoreio and the doctor's title honoris causa of the following institutions: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Unicamp and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
The poet belongs to the second modernist generation (1930-1945), marked by the reflection about the contemporary world and for formal freedom. However, Quintana presents a more individual poetry, characterized by the humor and for simplicity. How well the poet was defined in the magazine That is: "Exactly because I despise the boredom, the longness, I love the synthesis".
Read too: Clarice Lispector – great name in intimate literature
Mario Quintana Biography
The poet Mario Quintana was born in July 30, 1906
, in Alegrete (RS). Published his first texts in the magazine Hyloea, from the military college where he studied from 1919 to 1924. In 1926, his short story the seventh characterwon the newspaper's short story contest News Diary, in Porto Alegre. However, The street of pinwheels, your first book, was published when the writer was over 30 years old.
In 1966, his work poetic anthology received the Fernando Chinaglia award of best book of the year. In 1967, Quintana received the title of honorary citizen of Porto Alegre. The texts of his column “Caderno H” (started in 1943), in Province of Saint Peter Magazine and then in the newspaper People's Mail, from Porto Alegre, were brought together in a book with the same name, published in 1973.
In 1976, the poet was honored with the Negrinho do Pastoreio medal, award from the government of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1980, he received the Machado de Assis award, from the Brazilian Academy of Letters, for the body of the work. The following year, in 1981, the tortoise award, in the Literary Personality of the Year category.
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In 1982, the poet received the doctor's title honoris causa, awarded by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). The same title was given, in 1989, by Unicamp and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). In 1983, the Majestic Hotel, where the poet lived from 1968 to 1980, in Porto Alegre, became the Mario Quintana Culture House.
Writer Mario Quintana, in addition to writing poetry, translated works by authors such as Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Voltaire (1694-1778). In the year of his death, in May 5, 1994, some of his texts were published in the literary magazine Release, from Canada.
Mario Quintana's literary features
The works of Mario Quintana do not have easy classification in relation to their belonging to this or that style of time. However, the writer is usually associated, by literary critics, with the second generation modernist.
This generation, known as the “reconstruction phase”, no longer carries out the re-reading of the historical past made by the first generation. Now, writers and writers start to dedicate themselves to reflection on the contemporary world, which generates a spiritual conflict, because religious belief is confronted with a hopelessness (political crises and the Second World War).
Also, since no longer have the mission to break with the past (tradition), poets and women poets have greater freedom of choice with regard to formal structure of the poem, being able to choose free verses (without meter and without rhyme), white verses (with meter and without rhyme) or regular verses (with meter and rhyme).
For J. Ç. pozenate|1|, “Mario Quintana is, strictly speaking, the first Gaucho poet doing urban lyricism, where the stigma of city life in the province is felt”. Regina Zilberman|2| states that Mario Quintana would have been “drunk, during his training, in the poetics symbolist, who never abandons his verses”. In addition, according to her, Quintana insisted “to accent theindependence from your poetics, refusing to attend any literary school [...]”.
This attitude would indicate “the affirmation of personal identity in the face of massification, reacting to the leveling advance of industrial society [...]”. For Zilberman, Mario Quintana, avoiding “two subjects often frequented by modernist poets, which are, the reflection on the place of man in the world and in society, [...], and religious expression, [...], explore before one provocatively individualistic line”.
In general, Mario Quintana's writing is marked by humor and simplicity. In the formal aspect, his poetry resorts so much to free verses as to the rigidity in the sonnet metering.
Read too: Rachel de Queiroz – another representative of the second modernist phase
Works by Mario Quintana
Mario Quintana has published the following books:
The street of pinwheels (1940)
songs (1946)
flowered shoe (1948)
the sorcerer's apprentice (1950)
Magic mirror (1951)
Unpublished and sparse (1953)
Notebook H (1973)
Supernatural History Notes (1976)
Quintanars (1976)
the cow and the hippogriff (1977)
hideouts of time (1980)
Amazement chest (1986)
Laziness as a working method (1987)
Travel arrangements (1987)
Revolving door (1988)
the color of the invisible (1989)
Deathless wake (1990)
Construction juvenile child:
the battalion of letters (1948)
Pestle foot (1975)
Lili invents the world (1983)
glass nose (1984)
yellow frog (1984)
spring crosses the river (1985)
punctured shoe (1994)
Sample poems
![Cover of the book Apontamentos de História Supernatural, by Mario Quintana, published by Editora Globo. [1]](/f/586215517fa3bf79150cf47c953b9a06.jpg)
we choose three poems from the book Supernatural History Notes, by Mario Quintana, for comment here. O first theirs is “The Teenager”. This poem speaks of the fear surrounding the curiosity of the teenager, who is compared to a “young feline”, therefore, wild, which comes out, for the first time, from the cave (at home) and, even scared, go to discover the world outside; because, in the adolescent universe, there is only the news it's the desire:
Life is so beautiful it's scary.
Not the fear that paralyzes and freezes,
sudden statue,
but
this fascinating and quivering fear of curiosity that makes
the young feline move forward sniffing the wind
when leaving the cave for the first time.
Fear that dazzles: light!
Yours faithfully,
the leaves tell you a secret
old as the world:
Teenager, look! Life is new...
life is new and walks naked
— dressed only in your wish!
O second poem is “The mirror”, in which the lyrical self, when passing in front of the mirror in his room, see something beyond yourself, see what came before him, you ancestors. As the mirror reflects the image of the one who is in front of it, it is possible to understand that the lyrical self is also those who came before it, your ancestors. By rescuing this story, he defines his own identity, because it is the present but also the past, hence the “discordance” of Time:
And as I passed in front of the mirror
I didn't see my room with its shelves
neither is my face
where time runs.
First I saw some pictures on the wall:
windows where they look at hairy grandparents
and the grannies in the balloon skirt
like reverse paratroopers who ascend from the depths of time.
The clock marked the time
but it didn't say the day. The time,
disconcerted,
was stopped.
yes it was stopped
on top of the roof…
like a weathervane that has lost its wings!
Finally, the third poem: “The poet and the ode”. Ode is usually a poem with symmetrical verses, that is, with the same number of syllables. It's a solemn composition, made for exalt someone or something. So it's a contained poetry, with rules, and there is the aim to please. Therefore, the lyrical self ironically compares the “poet of the ode” to a “circus horse”.
At second stanza, when the lyrical self states that "In severe measure / Beats the rhythm of the hooves", the "measure" it refers to is the act of meter the poem, compared to hoof rhythm of a horse. So, behind all this subject, it's impossible to know the horse wild who lives in the poet, which give up your freedom of creation. The “poet of the ode” is, therefore, a noble animal.
His steadfast elegance.
His strength contained.
the poet of ode
It's a circus horse.
in severe measure
Beats the rhythm of the hooves.
From moment to moment,
Relentless impact,
The accent on the syllable drops.
The bronze mane lasts.
I stiffen my neck high.
Who knows you tense
fury, of the sacred
Flight momentum?
Noble animal, the poet.
Read too: March 21 — World Poetry Day
Phrases by Mario Quintana
In November 14, 1984, Mario Quintana wrote a text for the magazine That is, on what talked about himself. From this text, we take some sentences that deserve to be highlighted:
"I always thought that every confession not transfigured by art is indecent."
"My life is in my poems, my poems are me, I never wrote a comma that wasn't a confession."
"I'm 78 years old, but ageless."
"I'm so proud that I don't think I've ever written anything that matches me."
"Poetry is dissatisfaction, a yearning for self-improvement."
"A satisfied poet does not satisfy."
Next, some sentences (verses) taken from the book Supernatural History Notes:
"Death hates curves, death is straight."
"Whoever writes a poem saves a drowning man."
"Poet is the one who finds a lost coin..."
"Sunday is a dog hiding under the bed."
"God is simpler than religions."
"Not everyone fulfills the old childhood dreams!"
Grades
|1| Apud ARAÚJO, Patrícia Vitória Mendes dos Santos; MITIDIERI, André Luis; ARENDT, João Claudio. Mario Quintana in the literary history of Rio Grande do Sul.
|2|Apud ARAÚJO, Patrícia Vitória Mendes dos Santos; MITIDIERI, André Luis; ARENDT, João Claudio. Mario Quintana in the literary history of Rio Grande do Sul.
Image credit
[1] Editora Globo [reproduction]
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
