Jorge de Lima, poet from Alagoas, is inscribed in the history of Brazilian literature as a poet much ingenious. This ingenuity manifested itself in the phases through which his poetry passed. Initially, the poet manifested, in his writing, trends of Parnasianism It's from simbolism.
Later, his poetry, which had expressed great appreciation for Parnassian formal rigor and Symbolist ephemerality through abstract symbols and expressions, turned to a more regional thematic content, which brings him closer to the second phase of modernism.
Read more: João Cabral de Melo Neto – known as a poet-engineer for the characteristics of his poetry
Biography of Jorge de Lima
Jorge Mateus de Lima, known in the literary world as Jorge de Lima, was born on April 23, 1893, in União de Palmares, a city in the interior of Alagoas. He was a painter, draughtsman, illustrator, sculptor, poet, novelist and teacher. After having completed his first studies in his hometown, Jorge de Lima moved to Salvador (BA), where
joined the medical course. He continued at college in Rio de Janeiro, where he completed the course in 1914.His entry into literature occurred very early, around 1910, when he began to enjoy a certain prestige, mainly with the poem “Lamp Lighter”, text with Parnassian strokes. His official debut, however, was in 1914, with the publication of the work entitled Alexandrines XIV. After completing the medical course in Rio de Janeiro, he moved, in 1917, to Belém do Pará, where he got married.
After the wedding, he returned to Maceio and he dedicated to medicine, literature and politics. He was the father of two children: Mário Jorge and Maria Tereza. He was a teacher and director of Escola Normal and Liceu Alagoano. In 1921, was elected the Prince of Alagoas Poets. In 1926, he entered political life, electing himself as a state deputy.
In 1930, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where practiced medicine. Later this year, became professor of medicine of the University of Brazil and the University of the Federal District. Alongside his teaching career, Jorge de Lima worked in his office, which also functioned as an art studio, where met with artists and intellectuals of the time. In 1946, he was elected councilor of Rio de Janeiro. He was a candidate for the Brazilian Academy of Letters five times, but was not elected. In 1952 he was elected president of the Sociedade Carioca de Escritores. Died on November 15, 1953, in Rio de Janeiro.
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literary style
Jorge de Lima's poetic work presented, in his first publications, influenced Parnasianism and the simbolism. Later, Jorge de Lima joined the mmodernism, which made his poetry start to present nativist themes of popular and African origin. Later, his poetry expressed a tendency towards mysticism, a phase in which his poems presented religious traits. The most recurrent characteristics of his poems can be systematized as follows:
Prediction for formal rigor, expressed in the search for rhythmic and metric balance;
Themes linked to Neast and to Afro-descendant traditions;
Topics related to Catholic religiosity;
Aspects surrealists and symbolic;
Use of metaphors and allegories;
Sophisticated vocabulary;
Presence of paradoxes;
Tendency to universality and timelessness.
See too: Mario Quintana – poet who reproduced simplicity and reflection in his work
Works by Jorge de Lima
→ Poetry
Alexandrines XIV (1914)
the impossible boy's world (1927)
poems (1927)
new poems (1929)
chosen poems (1932)
time and eternity (1935), with Murilo Mendes
the seamless tunic (1938)
Annunciation and meeting of Mira-Celi (1943)
black poems (1947)
book of sonnets (1949)
poetic work (1950)
Invention of Orpheus (1952)
Castro Alves - Life (1952)
poetic anthology (1962)
→ Prose
Solomon and women (1927)
The angel (1934)
doll (1935)
the obscure woman (1939)
war in the alley (1950)
poems
the lamp lighter
Here comes the street lamp lighter!
This same one that comes indefatigably,
Parodying the sun and associating with the moon
When the shadow of the night blackens the sunset!
One, two, three lamps, lights up and goes on
Others lighting up imperturbably,
As the night gradually gets stronger
And the paleness of the moon is just present.
Sad atrocious irony that the human sense irritates: —
He who hurts the night and lights up the city,
Maybe there's no light in the hut you live in.
So many people also insinuates in others
Beliefs, religions, love, happiness,
Like this street lamp lighter!
The sonnet “The lamplighter”, from the book Alexandrines XIV (1914), is situated as one of the most important poems from the first phase of Jorge de Lima's work. In that poem, it is observed the construction of images that refer the reader to a typical scenario of Symbolist poetry, which can be inferred by the use of vocabularies with more vague content, such as "sun", "moon", "shadow", "night", "moon", "light".
Regarding the content, there is, in the poem, a third-person lyrical voice that leads the reader to think of the lamplighter, a common professional at the time when there was no electricity in cities and public lighting had to be turned on manually, as a human being clothed in subjectivity, which, despite having the important function of bringing light to the streets, is commonly ignored.
that black Fulo
Well, it happened that it arrived
(it's been a long time)
in my grandfather's bangue
a cute black woman
called black Fulo.
That black Fulo!
That black Fulo!
O Fulô! O Fulô!
(It was Sinhá's speech)
— Go make my bed,
comb my hair,
come help to take
my clothes, Fulo!
That black Fulo!
This little black Fulo
it was crazy for the maid,
to watch over Sinha
to iron for Mister!
That black Fulo!
that black Fulo
O Fulô! Oh Fulo!
(It was Sinhá's speech)
come help me, O Fulô,
come shake my body
I'm sweaty, Fulo!
come scratch my itch,
come pick me up,
come swing my hammock,
come tell me a story,
I'm sleepy, Fulo!
That black Fulo!
"I was once a princess
who lived in a castle
who owned a dress
with the fish of the sea.
entered a duck's leg
it came out on the leg of a chick
the lord-king sent me
to tell you five more".
(Fragment)
The extensive poem “Essa negra Fulô”, present in the book new poems (1929), expresses the Jorge de Lima's modernist phase, moment of his literary production in which the author turns to themes related to the Northeast region and Afro-Brazilian culture. In the fragment in question, which corresponds to the first verses of the poem, the enunciative voice presents the reader with the figure of “Black Fulô”, enslaved woman who lived on her grandfather's farm, subjected to patriarchal whims of their masters, a common practice in Brazil's slaveholding elite.
Christian Poem
because the blood of Christ
gushed into my eyes,
my vision is universal
and it has dimensions that no one knows.
Past and future millennia
don't stun me because I'm born and I'll be born,
because I am one with all creatures,
with all beings, with all things,
that I decompose and absorb with the senses,
and understand with intelligence
transfigured in Christ.
[...]
(Fragment)
In this excerpt from the long poem “Poema de Cristo” in the book the seamless tunic (1938), note the spiritualist tendency of Jorge de Lima. The lyrical voice, in the first person, expresses his Christian faith in redemption provided by Christ's sacrifice. The reference to Christian elements was a constant in the last phase of Jorge de Lima's poetry, when the author expressed his Catholic faith through poetic production.
Also access: Five poems by Cecília Meireles
Quotes by Jorge de Lima
"Not everything is epic and eighth-rhyme, because a lot of things fall in has its everyday smile."
"O life so confused and so dealt with, O shadow so compact and so rocky, of me that I cry, what is left?"
“I get ahead of myself, I bump into myself. I joined eternity without meaning to, and now I wander as one wanders aimlessly.”
"It was a poem being born, it was a mystery, it was a new sin moving."
"Oh father, know that I have already measured my size in spans by all the others, by the other measures, unreasonable, desperate, disheveled shadows."
“I get ahead of myself, I bump into myself. I joined eternity without meaning to, and now I wander as one wanders aimlessly.”
Summary about Jorge de Lima
→ Biographical data:
Date of birth: April 23, 1893
Place of birth: União dos Palmares, Alagoas
1914: completion of the medical course
1915: teacher and director of Escola Normal and Liceu Alagoano
1919: election for state deputy for Alagoas
1930: he became professor of medicine at the University of Brazil and the University of the Federal District.
1935: elected councilor of Rio de Janeiro.
1940: awarded the Grand Prize for Poetry, by the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
1952: elected president of the Sociedade Carioca de Escritores.
Death: November 15, 1953, in Rio de Janeiro
→ Literary Features:
existential and spiritual conflict
formal rigor
greater formal freedom as a feature of modernism
Symbolist and Parnassian features
surrealist features
presence of catholic symbols
presence of elements of Afro-Brazilian culture
