Olavo Bilac: life, characteristics, works, poems

protection click fraud

olavo bilac, considered the Prince of Poets, was born on December 16, 1865, in Rio de Janeiro. In his youth, he started taking courses in Medicine and Law, but never completed any of them. Worked Howjournalist and chronicler and published his first book — Poetry — in 1888. For opposing the dictatorial government of Floriano Peixoto (1839-1895), he was imprisoned twice, in 1892 and 1894.

Despite his poetry being marked by the sentimentality, the poet, one of the most famous in the early 20th century, is linked to Brazilian Parnassianism, style characterized by objectivity, descriptivism and formal rigor. The author, one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, in the last years of his life, taken by a nationalism passionate, he embraced the defense of obligatory military service before he died on December 28, 1918, in Rio de Janeiro.

Read too: Francisca Júlia – female representative of Brazilian Parnassianism

Biography of Olavo Bilac

Olav Bilac.
Olav Bilac.

olavo bilac was born on December 16, 1865, in Rio de Janeiro

instagram story viewer
O. At the time, his father, the physician Brás Martins dos Guimarães Bilac, was an Army surgeon at the Paraguay War (1864-1870). Thus, in 1880, with only 15 years of age and a special permit, Olavo Bilac joined the Faculty of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro, but ended up dropping out of the course four years later and starting the law course, in São Paulo, which also did not finish. This attitude of his ended up leading him to a disagreement with his family, unhappy with his decisions.

The writer, then, started working as a journalist and chronicler. I wrote for several newspapers and magazines. For many years, he wrote for the News Gazette. In addition, he was the founder of the periodicals the cicada, The middle and The street, which didn't last long. Your first bookPoetry — was published in 1888. In 1891, he worked as an officer in the Secretariat of the Interior of the State of Rio de Janeiro, however, for opposing the government of Floriano Peixoto, was arrested, in 1892.

Upon being released, the poet sought refuge in Ouro Preto, in the state of Minas Gerais. From then on, his poetry began to address issues of reality in his country. When, in 1894, the author returned to Rio de Janeiro, was arrested again. However, with the departure of Floriano Peixoto, Olavo Bilac resumed his routine and, in 1897, he was one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. That same year, when he lost control of the journalist's car José do Patrocínio (1853-1905), made history as the first driver to have a car accident in Brazil, when he crashed into a tree. The car had a total loss, but Bilac and Patrocínio were unharmed.

In 1898 he began working as a school inspector, position in which he would retire. At the beginning of the 20th century, Olavo Bilac was one of the most famous poets in the country. He wrote the lyrics of Anthem to the Flag, first published in 1906, and he was secretary to the mayor of the Federal District in 1907. In the years that followed, he became a passionate nationalist and devoted himself to advocating compulsory military service, lecturing across the country. Until, in December 28, 1918, Príncipe dos Poetas, occupant of chair number 15 at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, died in Rio de Janeiro.

Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)

Literary Characteristics of Olavo Bilac

The poet Olavo Bilac, despite having a subjective and sentimental poetry, is considered an author of ParnasianismBrazilian, which has the following features:

  • Anti-Romanticism: Unsentimental
  • Anthropocentrism: valuing reason
  • Objectivity: as opposed to subjectivism
  • Poetry descriptive
  • Formal rigor: meterification and rhymes
  • Valuing art for art: non-utilitarianism
  • Social alienation: indifference to sociopolitical issues
  • Appreciation of beauty, with regard to the theme and form of the poem
  • Distance from me lyric: does not participate in the content expressed by the text.
  • Presence of Greco-Roman references
  • Use of polysyndeton: repetition of the conjunction "and"

read more: Symbolism - like Parnassianism, it worshiped formal rigor

Works by Olavo Bilac

Cover of the book Poesias, by Olavo Bilac, published by the publisher Martins Fontes.[1]
Book cover Poetry, by Olavo Bilac, published by the publisher Martins Fontes.[1]
  • Poetry (1888)
  • Chronicles and novels (1894)
  • Sagres (1898)
  • criticism and fantasy (1904)
  • children's poetry (1904)
  • literary conferences (1906)
  • rhyming dictionary (1913)
  • irony and pity (1916)
  • Evening (1919)

Poems by Olavo Bilac

O sonnet next is part of the work Poetry, by Olavo Bilac. In it, the me lyric states that “crying”, as he went his way (his life), he was looking for a heart (a person) who ran away from him (did not return his love). Otherwise, he only found “iron hearts” (insensitive people). However, in the end, the lyrical self manages to touch the desired heart and, today, it is happy, because it has this heart beating inside your, which suggests that your love is finally reciprocated:

So many sparse I saw profusely
By the way, crying, treaded!
There were so many, so many! And I passed
For all of them cold and indifferent...
Anyway! anyway! I could with a shaking hand
To find in the darkness the one who sought...
Why did you run away, when I called you,
Blind and sad, groping anxiously?
I came from afar, following from error to error,
your fugitive heart seeking
And seeing only iron hearts.
I could, however, touch him sobbing...
And today, happy, within my closure,
And I hear it, happy, inside my throbbing.

Like characteristics of Parnasianism, it is possible to point the formal rigor (metrification - decasyllable verses - and rhymes), in addition to the social alienation, since the lyrical self runs away from sociopolitical issues. However, how particular feature from the poetry of Olavo Bilac, there is the expression of feelings, and the lyrical self shows itself in the poem — traces, therefore, of the romanticism.

In the poem “Vila Rica”, from the book Evening, the lyrical self describe the city of Ouro Preto, formerly Vila Rica, in its sunset, that is, at sunset. So he mentions the gold, which is sunshine, but it is also the gold extracted from the mines. Furthermore, by alluding to the "last gold of the sun" of the day, he is also referring to the absence of gold in the current context of the place. However, in heaven, there is gold, which, however, the time has turned black. Lastly, the stars, equally, are related to gold, due to its shine over the city of Ouro Preto:

O gold fawn from sunset the old houses copper;
Bleed, in traces of gold, the mines, what an ambition
In the tortured entrails opened from the noble land:
And each scar shines like a coat of arms.
The angelus soars in the distance in a painful bend.
The last gold from the sun dies in the fog.
And, austere, shrouding the glorious and poor city,
Twilight falls as a last rites.
Now, beyond the hill, the sky seems
made of a gold old man that time has turned black...
The fog, brushing the ground, whispers, in prayer,
Like a ghostly procession that moves...
Toll the bell... Sobbing a verse by Dirceu...
About the sad Ouro Preto the gold of the stars it rains.

In this sonnet, it is possible to point out the following parnassian features: O descriptivism, O formal rigor (metrification - Alexandrian verses - and rhymes) and the distance from the lyrical self, because he doesn't talk about himself at any time. However, it is possible to perceive a sociopolitical conscience of the Brazilian reality, when talking about the city's decadence, and also marks of subjectivity printed on the adjective abundant.

See too: Five poems by Olavo Bilac

Phrases by Olavo Bilac

Next, let's read some sentences by Olavo Bilac, taken from an interview given to the journalist and columnist João do Rio (1881-1921), in 1904:

"The evil of Brazil is above all the evil of being illiterate."

"There are, in life, things that are said but not written, things that are only written, and others that are neither written nor said, but only thought."

"An artist feels earthly pains more than a hundred ordinary men."

"Art is not, as some naive dreamers still want, an aspiration and a work on its own, unconnected with the other concerns of existence."

“Art is the dome that crowns the edifice of civilization.”

"Perhaps, in 2500, there are several literatures in the vast territory that today makes up Brazil."

"A people is not a people until it knows how to read."

Image credit

[1] Publisher Martins Fontes (reproduction)


by Warley Souza
Literature teacher

Teachs.ru
Poetry by Augusto de Campos

Poetry by Augusto de Campos

O Brazilian Concretism it is considered the last great avant-garde movement in Brazilian literatu...

read more

Poetry by Cora Coralina. Poet of Simple Things: Cora Coralina

"My dear friend Cora Coralina: Your 'Vintém de Cobre' is, for me, a gold coin, and a gold that do...

read more
Narrative Structure Techniques

Narrative Structure Techniques

When we think about the narrative, we usually associate the name to the textual types involved in...

read more
instagram viewer