Marcus Vinicius da Cruz de Mello Moraes, known as Vinicius de Moraes was born on October 19, 1913, in Rio de Janeiro, with noble ancestry and artistic gifts.
At just 16 years old, he entered the Faculty of Law of Catete, where he graduated in 1933, the year in which he had his first book published “O Caminho para adista” (The path for distance). During his period of academic training, he formed friendships with bohemian ties and since then, he has lived a life linked to bohemia.
After a few years he went to study English Literature at Oxford University, however, he did not graduate due to the outbreak of World War II. Upon returning to Brazil, he lived in São Paulo, where he became friends with Mário de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira and Carlos Drummond de Andrade and also made the first of his nine marriages. After some performances as a journalist, columnist and film critic, he entered diplomacy in 1943. Due to his diplomatic career, Vinicius de Moraes traveled to Spain, Uruguay, France and the United States, however without losing contact with what was happening in Brazilian culture.
He is one of the founders of the revolutionary movement in Brazilian music, called “Bossa Nova”, along with Tom Jobim and João Gilberto. With this new venture in the music world, Vinicius de Moraes abandoned diplomacy and became a musician, composed several lyrics and traveled through musical excursions. During this period he intensely experienced the ups and downs of bohemian life, as well as several marriages.
The beginning of Vinicius de Moraes' work follows an alliance with Neo-Symbolism, which brings a Catholic renewal in the 1930s, as well as a reformulation of the human spiritual side. Several of the author's poems fit into this biblically-themed phase. However, over the years, the poems focused on an eroticism that began to contradict his religious background.
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After this phase of dichotomy between pleasure of the flesh and Christian principles, unhappiness and happiness, Vinicius de Moraes left for a second poetic phase: the social theme and the vision of love of the poet.
There are differences in the structure of the writer's first poetic phase in relation to the second: the shift from long, melancholy verses to a more objective and colloquial language.
Vinicius de Moraes was a poet who marked literature and music, and to this day he is remembered, even in the names of avenues, streets, perfumes, etc.
the verb in infinity
Vinicius de Moraes
Being created, begetting, transforming
Love in the flesh and the flesh in love; born,
breathe, and cry, and fall asleep
And nourish yourself so you can cry
In order to be nourished; and wake up
A day to light and see, to the world and hear
And start to love and then smile
And then smile so you can cry.
And grow, and know, and be, and be
And lose, and suffer, and have horror
Of being and loving and feeling cursed
And forget about everything when a new love comes
And live this love till you die
And go conjugate the verb in infinity...
By Sabrina Vilarinho
Graduated in Letters
Brazil School Team
See more!
Modernism in Brazil – 2nd phase
The 2nd phase of Brazilian Modernism presents a poetry of questioning, of social unrest
Literature - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
VILARINHO, Sabrina. "Vinicius de Moraes "; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/literatura/vinicius-moraes.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
