clear riddle, in Carlos Drummond de Andrade, is a modernist work, first published in 1951. It is divided into six parts and brings poems of an existential character, with a love theme and reflections on time, memory and death. Its author was born in the mining town of Itabira, in 1902, and died in Rio de Janeiro, in 1987.
Read too: Five poems by Manuel Bandeira
Summary about clear riddle
clear riddle is a poetry book by Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
Its author is a writer from Minas Gerais belonging to the second generation modernist.
Published in 1951, the work is divided into six parts and has an existential character.
Its historical context is related to the Estado Novo dictatorship, the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War.
Characteristics of the work clear riddle
clear riddle it is a poetry book by Carlos Drummond de Andrade. It was first published in 1951. The work is divided into six parts:
“Between wolf and dog: existential character.
“love news”: amorous themes.
“The boy and the men: about the passage of time.
“Mine Seal”: set in Minas Gerais.
“Closed lips”: reflections on memory and death.
“The Machine of the World: theme of modern life.
The work presents characteristics of the second phase of the Brazilian modernism:
reflections on the contemporary world;
existential character;
spiritual conflict;
sociopolitical criticism;
presence of regular and free verses.
Examples of poem from the work clear riddle
In “Remission”, the I lyrical makes an existential reflection that encompasses memory, poetry and life. Thus he says that memory is the food or theme of poetry. However, poetry is food for the vulgar. The memory and poetry they mix and transform into the sad life.
Sad is the life of the poet, to whom the lyrical self seems to be directed. For the poet, the only thing left is the “contentment of writing”, while time and life pass by. This poem by Drummond is a sonnet with decasyllable lines. Therefore, the The poet resorts to traditional formal rigor:
Your memory, pasture of poetry,
your poetry, grass of the vulgar,
they're going to be stuck in something cold
what you call: life, and its sorrows.
But, regrets of what? would ask,
if you sing this taste of anguish to us,
if the one who sleeps at the base of elegy
goes running and drying through the air,
and nothing remains, even, of what you wrote
and forced you into exile from words,
but contentment of writing,
while time, and its brief forms
or long, how subtly you interpreted,
does it evaporate in the depths of your being?
In “Rapto”, a poem with decasyllable verses, the poetic self, through a metaphor, speaks of sexual desire. Such a desire is related to a "pure form", which, in the flight of the eagle, rises when it degrades. Thus, the lyrical self suggests sexual intercourse and pleasure in the “torture of the clash, in the finish / of a very mild exhaustion”.
If these “terrible kidnappings” of the eagle are repeated (here the lyrical self leaves the eagle's field and takes us to the “doubtful pearl doors of nightclubs”), if there is “a hiccup” in the “sterile kiss”, it is necessary to be attentive “to the intention/ of the ambiguous and reticent nature”, because it builds “another way of loving in the bitter love".
If an eagle splits the air and snatches
that which is pure form and which is sigh
of earthly delights combined;
and if that pure form, degrading itself,
more perfect rises, because it reaches
the torture of the clash, in the finish
of a very mild exhaustion, tribute
with which you pay for the sharpest flight;
if, for the love of a bird, he refuses
the natural pasture open to men,
and by the hermetic and defense way
the candid demands food
that the hungry soul begs to the extreme;
if these terrible abductions are repeated
already in the fields and already at night
dubious pearl doors of nightclubs;
and if there is a hiccup in the sterile kiss
elusive and frilly, gray in nuptials,
and everything is sad under the burning sky
(that Christian sin, now yoked
to the pagan mystery, the more it seizes it),
let us lower our eyes to the design
of the ambiguous and reticent nature:
she weaves, doubling her bitterness,
another way of loving in bitter love.
Finally, in the poem “Permanência”, written in free verse, the poetic voice reflects on memory and death. She speaks of remembrance and the loss of memory. For the lyrical self, love is eternal. But so is the end, death, and it starts long before it happens.
Paradoxically, the poetic self asserts that “forgetting is still memory”, in order to defend the “permanence” that says the title, since memory is “the flame that sleeps on the sticks of firewood thrown in the shed”, that is, in a body without life:
Now it reminds me of one, before it reminded me of another.
The day will come when none will be remembered.
Then in the same oblivion they will merge.
Once more flesh united, and the wedding
fulfilling themselves, as yesterday and forever.
For eternal is the love that unites and separates, and eternal the end
(it had already begun, before it was), and we are eternal,
fragile, nebulous, stammering, frustrated: eternal.
And oblivion is still memory, and sleep ponds
they seal in their blackness what we once loved and were,
or we never were, and yet it burns in us
like the flame that sleeps on the sticks thrown into the shed.
Read too: Five poems by Ferreira Gullar
Historical context of the work clear riddle
The concern with sociopolitical and existential issues, which characterizes the works of authors of the second modernist generation, such as clear riddle, comes from the historical context of the first half of the 20th century. The crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 affected the world economy and led to a drop in the price of Brazilian coffee, the main export item.
In Brazil, the Old Republic came to an end, and the country was ruled by Getulio Vargas (1882-1954), who, in 1937, decreed the new state, a dictatorship that lasted until 1945. Meanwhile, the Second World War exploded in Europe in 1939, preceded by the rise of fascism and Nazism.
The war ended in 1945 with the explosion of two atomic bombs in japan. Then the world became aware of the holocaust in Germany, characterized by the genocide of Jews, homosexuals and other minorities. The authors of the Generation of 30, faced with authoritarianism and war, are led to make existential and political reflections.
In the post-war period, Brazil came to be governed by Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1883-1974), a democratically elected military man. The return to Brazilian democracy coincided with the beginning of Cold War. In this context, the Brazilian president chose to side with the United States, and a new persecution of communists took place in Brazil, with the prohibition of the PCB in 1947.
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
![Statue of the writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade, in Rio de Janeiro.[1]](/f/8ae254eb60d1b41860754df0f58e06ba.jpg)
Carlos Drummond de Andrade was born on October 31, 1902, in the mining town of Itabira. Later, his family moved to Belo Horizonte, where the poet began his career as a writer and studied at the School of Dentistry and Pharmacy. But he did not act as a pharmacist, preferring the job of a copywriter.
From 1930, he worked as a cabinet officer for Gustavo Capanema (1900-1985) and, in 1935, as chief of staff for the Minister of Education and Public Health in Rio de Janeiro. He was a civil servant until 1962, when he retired as head of the DPHAN section. And he passed away on August 17, 1987, at Rio de Janeiro.
image credits
[1] Maarten Zeehandelaar / Shutterstock
By Warley Souza
Literature Teacher
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/literatura/claro-enigma-de-carlos-drummond-de-andrade.htm
