O Classicism was a cultural movement that was part of the european renaissance, during the 15th and 16th centuries. As the name itself points out, the proposal of Classicism was a return to the forms and themes of Classic antiquity, namely ancient Greece and Rome.
Historical context
O period of Middle Ages it lasted about 10 centuries in Europe (5th century – 15th century). During that long period of time, the scientific developmentandculturaldepended of endorsement or acceptance gives Catholic church, which exerted political and socioeconomic influence across Europe.
While wealth in the Middle Ages was related to land ownership and tradition, the commercial exchanges that were established with the mercantilism they made money the great source of power. O exchange with civilizationsfrom Asia and Africa, especially with people of Arab origin, opened new horizons for Europeans, such as the development of mathematics and navigation instruments, such as the astrolabe.
The geographic spaces opened up, with the discovery of
new routes by sea, leading to the arrival in the territories of the great American continent: they were the Great Navigations.
All this was possible thanks to the Renaissance, scientific and cultural movement that took over Europe in the 15th century. Dodging the Church's ideological censorship, thinkers and scientists elaborated new theories and inventions: Nicolas Copernicus proposes the heliocentric model of the Universe, Galileo Galilei discovers the laws governing the fall of bodies, Johann Gutemberg invents the movable types to print the books, a task previously delegated to copyist monks.
The cultural horizon of the Renaissance was Classical Antiquity. THE Ancient Greece is considered the cradle of Western thought (having directly influenced the culture of the Romans), hence the return atclassic shapes it was the aesthetic purpose of the Renaissance. Classicism had its genesis in Italy, at the end of the 13th century, with the emergence of humanistic thinking.
See too: Humanism: the aesthetics of the transition between medieval and Renaissance
Main characteristics of Classicism
- Search for balance, proportion, objectivity and transparency.
- Mimetic work as a reflection of a nature that follows universal laws, that is, the work as a harmonic concert.
- Containment of subjectivity, of the impulses of interiority: what counts is the work, not what the author feels or thinks. The author must disappear before the work.
- Formal rigor: each form used in the classic text must follow its own set of rules.
- Separation of the arts: the textual genres don't mix. THE lyric poetry has its own method and features that should not be confused with those of the epic poetry, or from dramaturgy, for example.
- Notion of the Greek ideal of beauty, also guided by the proportion and balance of forms.
- Neoplatonism.
- Themes from Greco-Roman mythology.
- Valuing rationality in opposition to sentimentality and the universal in detriment of the particular.
- Anthropocentrism, the centrality of human existence in relation to the Universe and what composes it.
- Work as a conveyor of truths and teachings that allow the improvement of the human soul.
- Adoption of textual forms from Classical Antiquity, predominantly dramaturgy and the genres of tragedy and comedy, and poetry, in the lyrical and epic genres.
Know more: Art in Ancient Greece: inspiration for the West
Classicism in Portugal
Although Classicism in Italy had insinuated itself in the mid-13th century, it was only in 1527, with Sa de Miranda, that the movement starts in Portugal. Influenced by sweet stil nuovo, “sweet new style”, in free translation, which he had learned in Italy, Sá de Miranda introduces the genre of decasyllable sonnet, which would become known as the “new measure”, as opposed to the “old measure”, that of the rounds (five or seven metric syllables).
Predominant in Portuguese Classicism was the theme of neoplatonism, philosophical school that resumed the love philosophy of Plato, dealing with the love not from sensuality, but from your philosophical bias and religious. In addition, the poets of the period especially valued the great national achievements, the achievements of the Portuguese people, the subject of epic poetry. It can be understood, therefore, that Classicism in Portugal turned to two main themes: love and bravery.
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Main authors and works
Francisco de Sá de Miranda (Coimbra, 1481 – Amares, 1558)
Precursor of Portuguese Classicism, was responsible for the introduction ofdecasyllable versein Portugal. He had some poetry published in general songbook (1516), anthological compilation of humanist poetry.
It also introduced, in Portuguese, the forms of the song of the sextina and the productions in triplets and octaves, being responsible for the training of Portuguese poets, having great influence on the literature that developed in the period.
were part of his themes to moral, philosophical and political reflection, in addition to love lyricism. He also wrote dramaturgical texts and letters in verse form.
Example of Sonnet by Sá de Miranda
With me,
I am put in every danger;
I can't live with me
Nor can I run away from myself.
With the pain we ran away,
Before it grew like this:
I would run away now
From me, if I could.
what do i hope or what end
Of the vain work I do,
because I bring me with me
Size enemy of me?
(Sá de Miranda)
Luís Vaz de Camões (1524/1525-1580))
the birth cradle of Camões it is uncertain: probably Lisbon, probably in 1524 or 1525, but the cities of Coimbra, Santarém and Alenquer also claim to be the place where the poet was born.
In noble origin, Camões had a solid education and was connoisseur of story, geography and literature. He started the Theology course at the University of Coimbra, which he abandoned for taking a life incompatible with religious precepts. Conqueror, Camões had many passions and his verses were very prestigious by the ladies of the court.
He engaged in duels and made enmities, which led him to enlist and embark as a soldier for Ceuta, fighting the Moors and losing his right eye in combat. Now free, he embarked for India in 1554 and also lived in Macau. He saved himself from a shipwreck in 1556, taking with him the originals of his most celebrated work, the epic poem The Lusiads. He died in Portugal in 1580.
Camões is considered the most important Portuguese language poet and one of the greatest in universal literature. His literary production is multiple and includes both learned forms as to popular shapes, of ballads, inspired by old medieval songs. Camões' work can be divided into two main axes: poetry lyric and the epic.
THE lyriccamoiana is mainly composed of love themes, heavily influenced by Neoplatonism, which coexists with sensual themes, almost always establishing a contradiction. At antitheses of presence-absence, spiritual love-carnal love, life-death, dream-reality are very present in his poems, which makes him an anticipator of the Mannerist movement.
In addition, Camões composed in the call "old measure", the rounds, linked to popular tradition, and in the "new measure", the decasyllable poem, the preferred form for exposing complex themes and feelings.
See too: Literature full of Baroque antitheses and paradoxes
Example of Camões' poetry
My gentle soul, you are gone
So early in this life, discontented,
Rest there in Heaven forever
And I live here on earth always sad.
If there in the etheric seat, where you climbed,
Memory of this life is consented,
don't forget that ardent love
That already seen in my eyes so pure.
And if you see that it can deserve you
Someone causes the pain that was left to me
From the pain, without remedy, from losing you,
Pray to God that your years have shortened,
May I come to see you so soon,
How soon from my eyes took you.
(Trucks)
The Lusiads
Camões was well known for his work as a sonnetist, but his great work was The Lusiads, epic poem of imprintnationalist which exalts the period of the Great Portuguese Navigations. Inspired by Virgílio and Homer for its form and theme, Camões also uses Greco-Roman mythology to weave the epic: Bacchus he would have turned against the Portuguese, for being the owner of the Indian territories, and Venus, for liking the Portuguese people, would have been his favor.
Thus, the real journey of Vasco da Gama is mixed with this mythological narrative. Written in 10 corners with eight stanzas each, The Lusiads it's the work of cultured language and high, according to the characteristic of epic poetry, and heroically sings the Portuguese kings and nobles to from the conquest of new territories, adding also other glorious episodes in the history of Portugal.
corner I
The weapons and barons assigned
Which, from the western Lusitana beach,
By seas never before sailed,
They also went beyond Taprobana,
In peril and hard wars
More than human strength promised,
And among remote people they built
New kingdom, which so sublimated;
And also the glorious memories
Of those Kings who were dilating
The Faith, the Empire, and the Vicious Lands
From Africa and Asia have been devastating,
And those who by valiant works
They go from the law of Death releasing:
Singing will spread everywhere,
If ingenuity and art help me so much.
[...]
(Trucks, The Lusiads.)
Solved Exercises on Classicism
1. (Enem 2012)
LXXVIII (Camões, 1525?-1580)
Leda delightful serenity,
Which represents a paradise on earth;
Between rubies and pearls, sweet laughter;
Underneath gold and pink snow;
Moderate and graceful presence,
Where teaching are eviction and wisdom
That can be done by art and by notice,
As by nature, be beautiful;
It speaks of who death and life hangs,
Rare, mild; at last, Lady, yours;
Rest in her cheerful and restrained:
These weapons are what I surrender to
And it captivates me Love; but not that I can
Strip me of the glory of surrender.
CAMOONS, L. Complete work. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar, 2008.
Painting and poem, although being products of two different artistic languages, participated in the same social and cultural context of production due to the fact that both
- present a realistic portrait, evidenced by the unicorn present in the painting and the adjectives used in the poem.
- value the excess of ornaments in the personal presentation and the variation of women's attitudes, as evidenced by the adjectives in the poem.
- present an ideal portrait of a woman marked by sobriety and balance, evidenced by the posture, expression and dress of the girl and the adjectives used in the poem.
- despise the medieval concept of the idealization of women as the basis of artistic production, as evidenced by the adjectives used in the poem.
- present an ideal portrait of a woman marked by emotionality and inner conflict, evidenced by the expression of the girl and the adjectives in the poem.
Resolution
AlternativeÇ. Both the poem's adjectives (“delightful serenity”, “moderate and graceful” etc.) and the posture and garments of the woman portrayed in the painting indicate the classicist ideals of sobriety and balance.
2. (UFSCar, 2003) The next question is based on the epic poem The Lusiads, by Luís Vaz de Camões, of which three stanzas are reproduced below.
But an old man, with venerable respect, (= appearance)
Which was on the beaches, between us,
Eyes on us, waving
Three times the head, discontented,
The heavy voice a little lifting,
That we at sea hear clearly,
With knowledge only from experiences made,
Such words took from the expert chest:
“O glory of commanding, O vain covetousness
This vanity we call Fame!
O fraudulent taste, which stirs itself up
C’a popular aura, what an honor it is called!
What a punishment and what justice
Do you chest vain that loves you very much!
What deaths, what dangers, what storms,
What cruelties you experience in them!
Hard restlessness of soul and life
Source of helplessness and adultery,
Shrewd, well-known consumer
From farms, kingdoms and empires!
They call you illustrious, they call you ascent,
Being worthy of infamous reproach;
They call you Sovereign Fame and Glory,
Names that foolish people are mistaken for.”
Camões' verses were taken from the passage known as O Velho do Restelo. In it, the old
- he blesses the Portuguese sailors who will cross the seas in search of a better life.
- criticizes Portuguese navigations for considering that they are based on greed and the search for fame.
- he is moved by the departure of the Portuguese who will cross the seas until reaching the Indies.
- he demeans sailors for not having invited him to join such an important enterprise.
- warns Portuguese sailors of the dangers they may encounter in seeking fame in other lands.
Resolution
AlternativeB. In the very first stanza, the old man, looking at the Portuguese sailors, swings his head, as a sign of discontent, and begins to say that it is fame and the will to power that move the men.
by Luiza Brandino
Literature teacher
