The Dramatic Poem "Death and Severe Life" is the masterpiece of the Pernambuco poet João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999). Written between 1954 and 1955, it is a regionalist-themed Christmas auto.
Cover of the first edition of Morte e Vida Severina
The poet, who was born in Recife, transformed the condition of the northeastern migrant, his social death and misery into visceral poetry.
Work Summary
Morte e Vida Severina portrays the trajectory of Severino, who leaves the northeastern hinterland towards the coast in search of better living conditions. Severino meets other northeastern people along the way who, like him, go through the privations imposed on the sertão.
The aridity of the land and the injustices against the people are perceived in not subtle measures by the author. Thus, he portrays the burial of a man murdered at the behest of landlords.
He watches many deaths and, after so much wandering, ends up discovering that it is precisely she, death, the biggest employer in the sertão. It is to her that the jobs are owed, from doctor to gravedigger, from healer to pharmacist.
Note, when wandering through the Zona da Mata, where there is a lot of greenery, that death spares no one. He portrays, however, that the persistence of life is the only way to overcome death.
In the poem, Severino thinks of suicide by throwing himself from the Capibaribe River, but is restrained by the carpenter José, who talks about the birth of his son.
The renewal of life is a clear indication of the birth of Jesus, also the son of a carpenter and the target of expectations for the remission of sins.
Characters
severine is the narrator and main character, a northeastern migrant who flees to the coast in search of better living conditions.
your joseph, carpenter master, is the character who saves Severino's life, preventing him from taking his own life.
Work Analysis
Death and Severe Life it is a poem of dramatic construction with an exaltation of the pastoral tradition. It was adapted for theatre, television, cinema and made into an animated film.
Through the work, João Cabral de Melo Neto, who was also a diplomat, was consecrated as a national and international author.
As a diplomat, the author worked in Barcelona, Madrid and Seville, Spanish cities that allowed a clear influence on his work.
João Cabral de Melo Neto was seduced by Spanish realism and confessed to having, from that land, the reinforcement of his anti-idealism, anti-spiritualism and materialism.
The instruments allowed him to write more clearly about the Brazilian northeast in Death and Severe Life and other poems.
The work is, above all, an ode to pessimism, human dramas and the indisputable adaptability of northeastern migrants.
The poem shocks for the realism demonstrated in the universality of the miserable condition of the retreatant, displacing the personal identity.
Learn more about the author of the work: João Cabral de Melo Neto.
Excerpts from the Work
To better understand the language that João Cabral uses in the work, check out some excerpts below:
THE RETREATANT EXPLAINS TO THE READER WHO HE IS AND WHAT HE IS GOING TO
— My name is Severino, as I don't have another one for a sink. As there are many Severinos, who is a pilgrimage saint, they then called me Severino de Maria as there are many Severinos with mothers called Maria, I became the Maria of the late Zacarias.
THE RETREATANT IS AFRAID OF GETTING AWAY BY ITS GUIDE, THE CAPIBARIBE RIVER, CUT WITH THE SUMMER
— Before leaving home, I learned the litany of the villages that I will go through on my long descent. I know there are many large villages, cities they are said to be, I know there are simple streets, I know there are tiny villages, all forming a rosary whose beads were villages, that the road was the line. I must pray this rosary to the sea where it ends, jumping from account to account, passing from village to village.
TIRED OF THE TRIP, THE RETREATANT THINKS TO INTERRUPT IT FOR A MOMENT AND LOOK FOR WORK WHERE IT IS
— Since I'm removing only death I see active, only death I came across and sometimes even festive only death has found those who thought it would life, and the little that was not death was of severe life (that life that is less lived than defended, and is even more severe for the man who remove).
THE RETREATTER RESOLVES TO HURRY THE STEPS TO REACH THE REEF
— I never expected much, I say to your lords. What made me withdraw was not the great greed, what I just sought was to defend my life from such old age that it arrives before if I find out thirty if I lived twenty in the mountains, if I reached such a measure, what I thought, removing it, was to extend it a little yet. But I didn't feel any difference between the Agreste and the Caatinga, and between the Caatinga and here the Mata the difference is the smallest.
THE CARPINA TALKS TO THE RETREATANT WHO WAS OUTSIDE WITHOUT TAKING A PART OF ANYTHING
— Severino, retreatant, let me tell you now: I don't really know the answer to the question I was asking, if it's no longer worth jumping off the bridge and from life, I don't even know that answer, if you really want to tell her it's difficult to defend life, just with words, even more when she's the one who sees, severina, but if I couldn't answer the question she was asking, she, life, answered it with her presence alive.
Animated film
Among the many ways in which it was portrayed, Death and Severe Life was transformed into a 3D animated film by cartoonist Miguel Falcão.
The cartoonist's drawing demonstrates the aridity described in the poem. It also translates João Cabral de Melo Neto's visual poetry clearly in the measured voice of the migrant and his other characters.
