PUBLICADO: 1998. "Portuguese-Language Poetry in Africa and Latin
America: The Concepts of "Negrismo", "Negritud", and "Mulatez," Journal of
Caribbean Studies. Vol 13. 1-2 (Fall 1998): 3-21. USA. Traducción de: Mary
Fanelly-Ayala, Eastern New Mexico University, USA.
Portuguese-Language Poetry in Africa and Latin America: The Concepts of
"Negrismo"1"Negritud,2" and "Mulatez3"
|
Nelson González-Ortega
University of Oslo, Norway
When Europeans, Africans and indigenous groups came into contact with one another on the
recently discovered American continent, it gave rise to a new ethnicity or mixture of different
races. It was a "transculturation" or cultural transference from the White European and Black
African social groups to the Native American; an "acculturation" or adoption of aspects of
the European culture by Africans4 and indios5 living on the American continent, and a
"religious syncretism" or fusion of European, African and indigenous religious beliefs.6
Since racial and cultural symbiosis has been an aspect which manifests itself repeatedly in
the Portuguese-language poetry of Africa and Brazil,7 in this essay I propose to study such
poetry using the following analytic procedures:8
1) Organize the poetic and theoretical texts studied here, using the concepts of "negrismo,"
"negritud," and "mulatez"9 as a frame of reference.
2) Adopt the concept of "negrismo" to study Portuguese and Spanish poetic texts from before
the decade of the 1920s, when Blacks were presented as comic and picturesque caricatures.
3) Adopt the concepts of “mulatez” and “mulatez poética”10 as well as the topics of
"exoticisim" and "tropicalism" in order to indicate the textual reference to the fusion and
confusion of European, African, and American cultural values in the Portuguese-language
poetry written by Blacks, Whites and mulattos in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
4.) Adopt the Gallicism "negritud" to signify the cultural phenomenon through which,
beginning in 1920, the textual conception of the Black and the mulatto in the cultural
discourse of Europe, of Portuguese-speaking Africa, and Franco / Luso-Spanish America
begins to transform itself. From being the passive object of poetic creation, the Black and the
mulatto become acting subjects or characters with their own literary personality.
"Negrismo": The African in Portuguese and Spanish Literature before the Twentieth
Century
The presentation of Blacks as literary objects in Luso-Hispanic culture did not first appear in
this century; it dates back to the formation of Spanish and Portuguese as majority languages
on the Iberian Peninsula. Therefore, the portrayal of the African in Portuguese- and Spanishlanguage poetry appears before 1492, the year in which Columbus incorporated the
American continent into the European cultural reality. In fact, the Black as a literary
character had already appeared in the Portuguese literature of the Late Middle Ages. In the
farce 0 clérigo de Beira by Gil Vicente (1465-1536), for example, the Black is introduced as
a comical character who expresses himself in a "deformed" Portuguese:
Gonçalo.
Dize, negro, es da corte?
Neg. Qu'esso? Gon. S'es da corte?
Neg. Ja a mi forro, nam sacativo.
Boso conhece maracote?
Corregidor Tibão he.
Elle comprai mi primeiro;
Quando ja paga a rinheiro,
Daita a mi fero na pé.11
Later, in the Spanish Golden Age poetry of Felix Lope de Vega (1562-1635) the Black is
presented as a comic figure who similarly "deforms" the Spanish language: "Ya a bailar
venimo / de Tumbucutu / a Santo Tomé."12 Other writers from the Spanish Golden Age, such
as Gongora, Quevedo, and Cervantes, also use Blacks as poetic objects of caricature. In the
colonial period of Luso-Spanish America., Blacks constituted the slave element of the
population; they were considered inferior to the colonizer, the "mestizo" and the Indio.
Consequently, just as in the metropolis, colonial literature only includes Blacks in order to
contrast them unfavorably with Whites, thus emphasizing their alleged cultural inferiority. In
addition to highlighting their "deformed" speech (in contrast to the careful and "proper"
language of the European upperclass), the authors of that period textualized the Africans'
fascination with music and dance, and their supposed "primitive savageness."
It is in this manner that Blacks appear as representatives of the savage, the comical, and the
caricaturesque in the epic poetry and the colonial religious poetry of America (for example,
in Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga's [1533-1594] La Araucana) and in the baroque poem
"Villancico dedicado a San Pedro Nolasco" by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695). In a
parallel fashion, in colonial Brazil there begin to appear famous writers such as Father
Antonio Vieira (seventeenth century) and the poet Domingos Caldas Barbosa (eighteenth
century).
During the nineteenth century, when abolition became an economic problem for the West,
the Black literary figure again resumed the forefront. At the time, it was thought that the
solution to the problem of slavery was the liberation not of the slaves but rather of the
colonists from the economic burdens of slavery, so that they could buy European machinery
and products. It was then that poets such as Longfellow and Whitman of the United States,
Mart! from Cuba, and Castro Alves in Brazil wrote romantic verses extolling Blacks and
denouncing the institution of slavery. These poets were not yet interested-because of
ignorance or lack of cultural sensitivity-in the Black as a human being, but rather as a symbol
of what they were attacking: the lack of liberty.
Prior to abolition in Luso-Spanish America there were Black slave writers, such as, for
example, the Cubans Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de Concepci6n VaIdds, who were
interested in cultivating the Black figure in the aforementioned Romantic manner. It is also
true that the works of these authors do not present the Africanized culture of the Americas,
nor do they allude to the sociocultural problem of Blacks and mulattos. Even very empathetic
Brazilians writing at the end of the nineteenth century, such as the poet Joaquim Maria
Machado de Assis and the Black poet Joao da Cruz de Sousa (a central figure in Portuguese
symbolism who was admired by Ruben Darío) continue to perpetuate the literary convention
of caricaturing Blacks lacking their own identity.
We cannot forget, however, that at the end of the nineteenth century and throughout the
twentieth, some poets began to focus their poems on geographical, ethnic, and cultural
aspects of Africa and Brazil which were no longer picturesque, but rather "exotic" and
fascinating to the European reader and to the "Europeanized" African writer. This phase of
Portuguese-language poetry will be considered under the term "mulatez poética."
Racial and Poetic "Mulatez"
The term "mulatez" has many shades of meaning. The one most important and relevant for
this study-because it effects the production and reception of literature-is the racial and
cultural affiliation of the poet and of his/her discourse. Generally speaking, poetry implies or
presumes a poet who produces it, a text which may or may not have a geographical,
ethnological, or sociocultural reference, and a reader who judges, justifies, or disapproves the
poetic text. The writer of African poetry in Portuguese who is being examined within our
present parameters is a poet of mulatto cultural affiliation-a person who is racially White,
Black, or mulatto who lives in a setting where autochthonous and foreign cultures are mixed.
As a result, the term "mulatto poetry" alludes not only to the racial features of the poet, but
above all to the cultural atmosphere of Africa and of the Atlantic shores of the Americas,
where African poetry was manifested in the Portuguese and Spanish languages.
The problem inherent in the racial and cultural uncertainty experienced by Blacks who had
been influenced by both European and African cultures is magnificently illustrated in the
poem "CanCão do mestiCo'' by the poet from São Torné, Francisco José Tenreiro:
Mestiço!
Nasci do negro e do branco
e quem olhar para mim
é como se olhasse
para um tableiro de xadrez:
a vista passando depressa
fica baralhando côr
no olho alumbrado de quem me vê...
Mestiço!
Quando amo a branca sou branco...
Quando amo a negra
sou negro
Pois é... (Antología, 1, 56)13
The cultural dilemma sung by the African poet is explained by the critic Manuel Ferreira,
who in his preface to the book, No reino de Caliban: Antología panorámica da poesía
africana de expressãos portuguesa (Lisbon, 1975), asserts that:
Mercê do fenómeno de aculturação ... E evidente que cada poeta vive ou sente ou
tenta compreender e sentir a realidade em que sua experiência se inscreve. Mas no
caso presente quem sâo os poetas? Pretos, mestiços, brancos, brancos nascidos em
Africa, brancos nascidos em Portugal e radicados temporária ou definitivamente em
Africa. E foi pela participação de todos eles que se ergueu, pouco e pouco, o edificio
de que pretendemos agora dar uma imagem. Quer dizer: a poesía africana de
expressão portuguesa não é feita apenas por africanos. Nela interferem também euroafricanos (brancos nascidos em Africa) e ainda também metropolitanos radicados ...
Como quer que seja pressupõe uma adesão cultural, um esforço de compreensão, um
esforço do integração, quando não mesmo aculturativo. (Antología, 1, 22-23)
One can infer that various cultures converge in the type of poet to whom Ferreira alludes.
Therefore, the poetry written in Africa and in Europe lyrically elaborates the cultural excision
in which African poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries find themselves.
In his poem "Adeus, irmão branco," the (mulatto) Angolan poet Geraldo Bessa Victor
proposes a literary answer to the dilemma of cultural "mulatez" through a fraternal racial
relationship between Whites and Blacks: "Adeus, meu irmão branco! Lá na Europa, / quando
falar da tropical paisagem, / não se esqueça da alma do negro. / Adeus, meu irmão branco,
boa viagem!" (Antología, 11, 60). In the same manner, the poetry of Felipe Moura Coutinho,
a White Portuguese poet living in Africa, advocates for a world without racial barriers. This
desire is expressed in the poem "Um igual a Um":
Conheci hoje o negro que ha em mim
E que vive em meu peito ignorado
sob uma pele branca de eurupeu.....
Nós podemo-nos de novo abraçar;
polo canto que nos guia
o negro não e mais cão
pelo canto que nos guia
Hoje o negro é meu irmão. (Antología, Ill, 164)
In this and the other cited poems, we can see the textual evidence that cultural and racial
"mulatez," as a very specific component of the poetic discourse of Portuguese-speaking
Africa during the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. This not
only poses the Question of the racial and cultural identity of the African poet, but it also
proposes a relationship of solidarity among all people.14
The Theme of Exoticism in Luso-African Poetry
Analysis of the topic of exoticism as an important aspect of LusoAfrican poetry assumes an
understanding of the etymology of the word "topic." "Topic," derived from the Greek topos,
is used literally to describe a "geographic location" (i.e., topography) and, in a literary
context, it serves specifically to indicate a "common place" or the recurrence of an idea in a
poetic, dramatic or narrative text. In Luso-African poetry, "exotic" is a double topic.
Topography refers to the description of fauna, flora and ethnography found in Cabo Verde,
Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé e Principe, Guinea, Bissau and Brazil, all of which were
unfamiliar to Europeans. At the literary level, it refers to the ideas or picturesque
preconceptions which the terms "savage" and "primitive" suggested.
The topic of "exoticism" appears in poems which emphasize unauthentic African cultural
values; that is, when a "tourist's" perspective or "outsider" vision of the African reality is
given. This is the case with some of the poems of Ant6nio de Navarro, Fernanda de Castro,
and Luis Palés Matos, those poets who most frequently use the topic of exoticism in their
poems. For example, in her poem "Africa raíz," Fernanda de Castro, uses an accentuated
local color" to "paint" an African environment replete with real fruits which have
paradisiacal scents and flavors:
0 Africa, flor negra, flor exótica,
o teu perfume
e alcool que embebeda
e destroi como lume....
A tua pele escura, lusidia,
sabe a fruta madura ...
Africa voluptuosa, aberta ao sol
como, flor sem segredo! (52, 53)
The agglutination of cliches like "exotic flower," "intoxicating perfume," "mature fruit," and
"flower without a secret" causes the sintagmemes to lose their aesthetic power, thus
becoming an easy metaphor: the "sexual deflowering" of a "voluptuous Africa." Recognizing
the semantic falseness of this type of poetry, Jorge Huet Bacelar parodies the techniques used
by versifiers of African exoticism in his poem "'Receita":
Um colar de missangas fica bem
E um dongo na baia.
Acácias rubras quanto baste.
E uma negra Maria.
Uma vóvó qualquer de preferéncia
Muito velha e negrinha.
Uma cor de materia pitoresca
Pintada com decência.
Contratado também nao fica mal
E um poente vermelho sobre o mar.
Benguela é indispensável
E um versito em quimbundu é magistral.
Um ar contestador não sei de quê
Com cores ao pirão e á sanzala
Marcar bem a distância complacente
da pessoa que fala.
'Angolano' dizer como Arquimedes
No banho disse 'Eureka'
Mas jamais englobar a descoberta
No sentido mais lato de africano.
De cultura europeia nem falar
De cultura africana nem saber.
Mas 'cultura angolana' com certeza.
leva-se ao forno e dá-se a quem gostar.
(Antología, 11, 370)
This effective parody of the exaggerated exotic aspect of LusoAfrican poetry demonstrates
the way in which the "vocabulary ingredients" have been capriciously chosen by "exotic"
poets in order to develop the "recipe" of a false cultural vision that does not reflect the true
African reality.
As Huet Balcelar indicates, the African "exotic" poets have taken words, actually cliches,
from one Antilla or another and even from the candomb16s and macumbas15 of Brazil. As a
result, in this type of poetry, the unconnected profusion and agglutination of meanings for the
"exotic" lead to the absence or suppression of meanings that are authentically African. The
analysis of "exotic" poetic texts in this section demonstrates that the African and his/her
culture are not taken as an object of poetic creation, but rather they become the literary
motivé for revealing a false Africanness or an external or tourist vision of Africa.
Tropicalism: Poetic Discourse of the Tropics?
Critics-of Luso-African poetry use the cultural category of "tropicalism" to denote a style of
poetry which goes beyond exoticism or simple African folklore without reaching the lyricalpolitical tone of denunciation and social protest implicit in the poetry of "negritud." Manuel
Ferreira describes the poetic idiosyncrasy of tropicalist poets in these terms:
São aqueles poetas que, não se preocupando compenetrar nas estructuras sociais
retintamente africanas, ndo enjeitam no entanto a aprensão do dados que algurn modo
ajudam a dimensionar urna realidade cultural em evolucão. Não será uma poesía de
quem esta dentre, do auténtico processo social, mas tambêm nâo se pode afirmar que
esteja de todo fora. Poesía que se encara do ponto de vista da totalidade afro-negra, se
dirige não corpo vivo do Africa, mas a relatcões digamos de superficie. Estariamos
assim diante de outo aspecto de poesía construída no continente africano: o
tropicalismo. (Antología, 1, 45)
The majority of these critical commentaries are completely adequate for describing the
tropicalist aspect of the poetry of, for example, Noémia de Sousa, the Mozambican poet
whose poem "Samba" unfolds a poetic universe which includes the culture of Black Africa,
North America and Brazil. 1 cite just a small fragment of "Samba":
e os vestidos brilhantes da civilização desapareceram
e os corpos surgiram, victoriosos,
sambando e chispando,
dançando, dançando...
Os ritmos fraternos do samba,
trazendo o feitiço das macumbas,
o cavo bater das marimbas gemendo
lamentos despedaçados de escravo,
oh ritmos fraternos do samba quente da Baía
pegando fogo no sangue inflamável dos mulatos,
fazendo gingar os quadris dengosos das mulheres...
Oh ritmos fraternos do samba,
acordando febres palustres no meu povo
embotado das doses de quinino europeu...
ritmos africanos do samba da Baía.
(Antología, 11, 85-86)
In this fragment we find the principal themes and discursive elements of what in this essay I
have called "poetic mulatez," which such critics as Florence White and Manuel Ferreira call
"mulatto poetry."These themes are: negro music and musical instruments; negro dance;
sexual relationships between Black men and women; the mulatta; allusions to EuropeanAfrican religious syncretism (especially with reference to santeria and "macumba" for
instance); transculturation-acculturation; the evils inherent in slavery; forced emigration,
"saudade," the concept of "mãe Africa and negative aspects of European colonization-for
example, the transfer of some European diseases, and the introduction of Western
medicine.16
These themes are similar to those of other African poems written in Portuguese, such as
"Meia noite na Quintanda" by Agostinho Neto; "Ritmo para a jóia daquela roca" by
Francisco José Tenreiro; "0 tocador de Marimba" by Geraldo Bessa Victor; "Fogo e ritmo,"
"Quero ser tambor," and "Joe Louis nosso campedo" by José Craveirinha (Antología, 11: 15,
21, 441-442; Antología, III: 53, 173, 185, 188). They also appear in Caribbean poems like
"Pueblo Negro" by the Puerto Rican negrista poet Luls Palés Matos (Fernández de la Vega,
Miami 1973: 172). In this poem and others, the Puerto Rican writer uses "jitanjafóric"
rhythmic resonance to demonstrate the most exotic aspects of what he assumes to be Black
culture.17
The poetic modalities of tropicalism. and religious syncretism are seen more clearly in the
poem "XangY by the Brazilian Jorge de Lima. This poem is interesting because it is the only
one in the collection, Poemas negros, which deals with the theme of the African religion. In
"XangY we find the description of a ritual session among a group of slaves who invoke the
three principal African gods-Xangô his wife Oxum, and Oxalá-as well as the Christian saints
São Marcos, Sâo Cosme, and São Damiã, so that they might help bring a little magic to the
marriage between Sinhô and Sinhá:18
Num sujo mocambo dos "Quatro recantos",
quibundos, cabusos cabindas, mozambos
mandiga, xangô.
Oxum! Oxalá. 0! E!
Dois feios calungas-oxala e taió rodeados de contas,
no centro o Oxum!
Oxum! Oxalá. 0! E! […]
Mas chega o momento: Xangô sai do nicho
de contas redondas,
se encarna no corpo dos negros fetiches...
a negra mais nova se espoja no chão.
Acode o mocambo,
Xangô tinha entrado no ventre bojudo,
subira pro, crânio da negra mais nova.
Num canto da sala
Oxalá sorri.
Minhas almas
santas benditas
aquelas são
do mesmo Senhor
tôdas duas
tôdas três
tôdas nove
o mal seja nela
São Marcos, São Manços
com o signo de Salomão
com Ohum Chila na mão
com três cruzes no surrão
S. Cosme! S. Damião!
Credo
Oxum-Nila
Amen. (Carpeaux, 96, 99)
At the formal level, the typographic disposition of this poem suggests rhythm, movement,
and agglutination-dispersion. In a complementary fashion, at the thematic level, we find a
syncretism between Christian and African religions. In fact, by using exotic sounding words
and ritualistic evocations like "0! E!," Lima succeeds in creating the sensation of a mystical
hypnosis that is supposedly characteristic of some African rituals. In the description of the
sexual possession of the "negra nova" (new Black woman), we increase our feelings of
hypnosis through the poet's use of choral voices that invoke the African gods and Christian
saints. I am not sure that it does much for the credibility of the performers of the rituals.
As such, the poet does not succeed in capturing the participation of the reader in this ritual
session. Perhaps this is because the lyrical speaker in the poem only describes the external,
picturesque elements of the ceremony, and never manages to decrease the distance that
separates him from those participating in this ritual. However, at times he does manage to
imbue his poetry with a powerful social message, such as the one he articulates in his poem
"Rei é Oxalá, Rainha é Temonjá."
Although it is true that tropicalist poetry alludes to (without openly denouncing) the situation
of racial and cultural inferiority in which the Africans found themselves prior to the twentieth
century, it is also true that it is through tropicalism. that the social injustice suffered by
Blacks began to be revealed. It is for that reason that I believe that tropicalism. is in a
position of a transition between the poetry of exoticism and the poetry of "negritud," since
the latter is a poetics of revindication.
Negritud: A Cultural Product and an Aesthetics of Social Revindication.
In the previous pages I have discussed how in the poetry created in Hispanic-Portuguese and
Lusophone African cultural settings, from the Late Middle Ages to well into the twentieth
century, a picturesque, exotic, and tropicalist vision or notion of African culture has
prevailed. Now, I shall point out that, although this vision has not disappeared completely, it
is apparent that in the first decades of the twentieth century, both in artistic and intellectual
circles as well as in certain sectors of the European public, there emerged a great interest in
knowing and appreciating the artistic products of Black Africa from a new perspective.
Indeed, during the period between the two world wars, artists like Picasso and Bracque
reproduced the figure of the African (in their so-called "negro" period). Through painting and
sculpture in different poses and attitudes, they created-in Fauvist and Cubist styles-small
African statues in marble, wood, and bronze. In this manner, Europe witnessed the birth of a
cult, which critics termed "primitive art." At the same time, writers like Apollinaire, André
Gide, jean Genet and jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the German anthropologist Leo Frobenius,
were creating texts in which the old European version of the African as a mere caricature was
being replaced by a literary characterization which was much more in tune with modem
times.
Those Black writers of the Antilles and Africa who, along with certain "White" European
historians and anthropologists, became the creators and promoters of a new
European/African aesthetic movement. They were all immersed -physically and
psychologically- in this Parisian atmosphere of the "African Renaissance." The term
"négritude" was coined by the author Aimé Césaire of Martinique, and it was given general
currency in his Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Paris, 1939). Afterwards, the term was used
to designate an artistic philosophy which has been elaborated theoretically and aesthetically
by Césaire himself, and by the Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Sengor in Presence Africaine
(Paris, 1956). Afterwards, the German critic, Jahnheinz Jahn, in his study, Muntu: An Outline
of Neo-African Literature (London and New York, 1961), would continue the fierce defense
of the aesthetics of "négritude."
"Négritude" is part of a general movement within modern art which includes Black painting,
Black sculpture, Black music (like jazz), Black dance, Black religious rites, Black novels,
poetry and drama, which all imply a new attitude or "la prise de conscience" regarding
Africans. In the strictest sense, the theory and poetics associated with the cultural movement
of "negritud" fiercely denounced the European cultural ethnocentricity of the period prior to
1920, that had relegated Africans to cultural inferiority.
At the same time, postmodem evaluations advocate a revaluation of African art and
literature. The literary issues discussed by critic G. R. Coulthard in his article "Antecedentes
de la negritud en la literatura hispanoamericana" (Mundo Nuevo, Paris, 11 May 1967), could
be construed as a "manifesto" of Antillean "negritud." The central points of this "manifesto"
(also stated in Coulthard's Race and Colour in the Caribbean) are:
1) la revaloración de la cultura negra en el contexto de sus propios valores y no en
relación con los ajenos impuestos desde afuera, o sea, europeos;
2) un énfasis en elementos rítmicos y la repetición rítmica;
3) la fácil comprensión, es decir, una literatura que se dirige al mundo que tiene su
origen en el sentimiento colectivo de todo el pueblo, no que se escribe para una élite
intelectual;
4) la posesión (la. captación) de la realidad mediante la palabra, una especie de poder
imaginativo y mágico, hechicero;
5) una atracción fácil y especial para todos los pueblos de origen africano donde
quiera que se hallen. (Coulthard, 74)
This cultural project proposes a radical change in the cultural discourse of Europe, of
Portuguese-speaking Africa, and of Franco-, Luso-, and Spanish-America: the negro and
mulatto become acting subjects rather than passive objects of poetic creation. The theoretic
foundation of "négritude" provided by Césaire and his followers was useful not only because
it encouraged artists and writers outside of Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century to
establish cultural ties with "a mde Africa," but also because it contributed to revealing those
elements of African culture that had remained hidden or "confused" with the popular art of
the Antilles and the Atlantic coast of the American continent.
In synthesis, the cultural movement of "négritude" is characterized by a writer or poet-White,
Black, or mulatto-who adopts the role of historian and critic and recognizes the situation of
cultural inferiority to which African culture has been relegated. Since it is beyond the scope
of this study, I will not discuss Black and mulatto Franco-Antillean poetry, but instead I will
analyze continental Afro-American poetry of "negritud" which can be considered the mise en
texte poetique of the theory that developed from the "manifestos" of "négritude."
"Négritude" was a cultural movement which originated in Paris as an "artistic" and/or
"literary" fashion, afterwards travelling to the French and Hispanic Antilles, thereby
becoming a philosophy of art whose purpose was to aid in introducing African culture to the
West. However, in countries like Cuba, even before the theoretic bases of "n6gritude"
developed in 1939, Nicolds Guill6n had already written poems with a Marxist ideology,
denouncing the assumed racial and cultural superiority of Europe, as well as the racial
discrimination and economic exploitation suffered by indigenous Africans and the
Antilleans.
This poetry of protest is called "negrismo cubano" by some critics and "negrismo afrocubano" by others, but in this study, I shall associate it with the poetry of "negritud" because
I wish to demonstrate its relationship with the French-Antillean concept of "négritude," and
because the subject and object of this poetic creation is a Black, "White" or mulatto, who
writes from a plural Afro-American cultural perspective, and includes the Atlantic shores of
the Americas and not merely the Antilles or Cuba alone.
A highly representative "negritud" poet is the Brazilian Jorge de Lima. His poetry reflects
European literary techniques, transcending race and culture. In his long poem "A minha
America" the lyrical speaker evokes a poetic universe of solidarity among all its inhabitants:
Cidade de Cusco. Hace frio.
lá vem a procissão do Senhor dos tremores da terra
Viva el. señor de los temblores! Viva el Perú!
o mesmo homem curvado sobre a terra,
a mesmo garoto esfarrapado
vigiando ovelhas e cabritos, ...
U.S.A.
Indústrias gigantescas,
trustes colossais,
Massachusetts,
New Hampshire,
Rhode Island,
Connecticut,
Pensilvania,
Estados Unidos da America! ...
Os Brasis, os M6xicos, as Patag6nias desta America…
náo cantam os cantos bons que Marsden Hartley
e Grace Hazard Conkling entoaram.
Aqui os mulatos
substituiram os negros gigantes de Vachel Lindsay.
Aqui não há os salvagens felizes de Mary Austin.
Negros,
Salvagens,
Amarelos,
-o arco-iris de tôdas as raças canta pela bôca
de minha nova América do Sul,
uma escala diferente da vossa escala,
Alfred Kreymborg,
Whitman! (Carpeaux, 59, 62, 64, 66)
In this poem, the author creates an extensive cultural geographical context and diverse
themes which cover or (dis)cover people and countries of different races and cultures. The
poet denounces the economic exploitation of Black, mulatto, and "yellow" laborers by
imperialist, multinational corporations at the beginning of the century. From this perspective,
the poem is a testimony to raising social consciousness, and it reveals the leftist political
position adopted by Lima. Here he uses an apparently simple poetic language to give a
popular air to his poem.
As I have previously commented, continental Afro-American poetic discourse of the
twentieth century has been characterized by its focus on social protest. On occasions, this
militant poetry softens its belligerent tone by, moving from denunciation to the "desperate"
desire for a change in the situations of the racially and socially oppressed Black and mulatto.
This is the case with the poems "ConfianCa" and "AspiraCão" by African poet Agustino
Neto. The following is a fragment of the poem "AspiraCão," in which the poet, with a tone
that i~ much less belligerent than that of Lima, encourages Africans to fight for their social
rights:
Ainda o meu canto dolente
e a minha tristeza
no Congo, na Georgia, no Amazonas....
E nas sanzalas
bas; casas
nos subúrbios das cidades
para lá das linhas
nos recantos oscuros das casas ricas
onde os negros murmuram: ainda
0 meu desejo
transformado en força
inspirando as consciências desesperadas.
(Antología, 11, 32-33)
In this poem, the revolutionary intention of the Black poet is to "infect" his brothers with a
"desire-force" of social revindication is clear, hoping that their desperation can be channeled
into political action. After establishing the processes of social reform that had been initiated
during the political revolutions of Cuba (1959), Angola (1975), and Mozambique (1975), and
with the rejection of European cultural enthnocentricity supported by intellectuals from all
parts of the world, it seems that the cultural revindication of continental Afro-Americans and,
in general, of all ethnic minorities is now becoming a reality.
Analysis of these types of texts reveals that Afro-American poets Lima and Neto share
basically the same political beliefs. Lima, with his Marxist ideology, uses his poetry to reveal
the exploitation of laborers who suffer physically and psychologically because they cannot
satisfy their economic needs. Neto also has a Marxist ideology, yet he projects this ideology
to a lesser degree in his poetry. Rather, he focuses on exposing the racial injustice suffered by
Blacks in Africa and America. Because of their protest against the social and economic
exploitation of human beings, and because they employ the literary techniques of the
European vanguard, these two poets have become the foremost representatives19 of the New
World Afro-American poetry of what I have termed “negritud.”
In summary, any comments concerning cultural "negrismo," "negritud," and "mulatez" in
Luso-African and Luso-SpanishAmerican poetry lead to the conclusion that the following
elements of discourse distinguish Afro-American poetry in the Portuguese language:
a) the supernatural, which is revealed in the presence of magic and animism in mulatto
poetry, and which is the result of the cultural syncretism produced by the blending of African
and European religious rites;
b) the emotional, which is perceived in the poetic expression of the lyrical sentiment of
"saudade";
c) the exotic, which can be perceived in the presence of music, choruses, percussion, dances
("exótixmo") and in the beginnings of a denunciation of the social and cultural situation in
Africa and Portuguese-speaking America ("tropiclismo"); and
d) the revolutionary, which is manifest in the fact that "negritud" was, in addition to a poetic
movement, a political attitude of cultural innovation. As the poets utilize one or the other, or
shift backwards and forwards in their texts, they show clearly the ability of negritud to adapt
itself to ever-changing new realities, and as they negotiate new spaces which address alterity,
marginality and difference.
Works Cited
Ander-Egg, Ezequiel. Diccionario de trabajo social. Bogotá: Editorial Plaza y Janés, 1986.
Augier, Angel, Ed. Nicolás Guillén: Nueva Antología. México: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, S.A., 1979.
Barreto Feio, Joe Victorino. and J. G. Monteiro, Eds. Obras completas de Gil Vicente. 3 Vols. Hamburg: Na
Offçina Typographica de Langhoff, 1834. Vol. 3.
Carpeaux, Otto Maria, Ed. Jorge de Lima, Obra poética. Río de Janeiro: Editôra Getulio Costa, 1949.
Castro, Fernanda de. Africa raíz. Lisbon: Tipografia A. Côndido Guerreir (herdeiros) Lda., 1946.
Céssaire, Aimé. Cahier de retour au pays natal. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1971.
Coulthard, G. R. "Antecedentes de la negritud en la literatura hispanoamericana" Mundo Nuevo. 11 (May,
1967): 73-77.
Fernández de la Vega, Oscar and Alberto N. Pamies. Iniciación a la poesía afro-americana. Miami: Ediciones
Universal, 1973.
Ferreira, Manuel, Ed. No reino de Caliban: Antología panorámica da poesía africana de expressão portuguesa.
3 Vols. Lisbon: Seara Nova, 1975.
Jahn, Jahnheinz. Muntu, an Outline of Neo-African Culture. Trans. Margaret Green. New York: Grove Press,
1961.
Navarro, Antonio. Poema de Africa. Lisboa: Livraria Portugalia, 1941.
Ramos, Arthur. 0 negro brasileiro. 2nd Ed. Series 5, Brasiliana. Vol. 188, São Paulo: Editôra Nacional, 1940.
Senghor, Leopold Sédar. "L'esprit de la civilisation ou les lois de la culture negro-africaine." Présence
Africaine, 8-9-10 (1956). 51-65.
White, Florence E. Poesía negra in the works of Jorge de Lima, Nicolás Guillén, and Jacques Roumain 19271947. 2 Vols. PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 1981.
Notes
The author gratefully acknowledges the kind assistance of Mary Fanelly-Ayala, who translated the article
into English.
1
This concept, which is defined in the body of this essay, will be referred to as "negrismo" since there is no
exact English equivalent for this term. What is most interesting about it is that, in large measure, certain White
Cuban and Puerto Rican writers saw it as a clarion call for freedom and independence.
2
This concept, which is defined in the body of this essay, will be referred to as "negritud" since there is no exact
English translation for this term, and since it is only similar to, but not the equivalent of, the French term
"n6gritude"-this latter defined by L6opld S6dar Senghor as the " sum total of the cultural values of the Black
race."
3
This concept, which is defined in the body of this essay, will be referred to as "mulatez" since there is no exact
English translation for this term.
4
The term "negro" in Spanish it is often used to describe people of African descent. However, since there are
shades of meaning inherent in the Spanish term which are not always captured in an English translation, the
Spanish /Portuguese word "negro" will be used throughout this essay in the relevant language contexts.
However, I myself use "African" and "Black" almost interchangeably in English. The term "Afro-American" I
reserve to describe the continental wide usage of African strategies and devices in poetry-real or imagined-in
order to convey a feeling for African life and culture. I apply the term to poets, regardless of their ethnicity.
5
The term "indio" in Spanish literally means "Indian," but it usually refers to indigenous people of any land, and
it has been used in this way since Christopher Columbus mistook the natives of the Americas for people of the
Indies. However, since there are shades of meaning inherent in the Spanish term which are not always captured
in an English translation, the Spanish word "indio" will be used throughout this essay.
6
The anthropological meaning of these terms can be found in Ezequiel Ander-Egg's Diccionario del trabajo
social. Bogotá: Plaza y Janés, 1986.
7
I shall be utilizing the linguistic-geographic category "Portuguese-speaking Africa" to refer to those countries
in Africa where Portuguese is the official and majority language of the population: Cape Verde, Angola,
Mozambique, São Tomé e Principe, and Guinea Bissau. Similarly, Luso-Hispanic America includes those Latin
American countries where Spanish is the principal language, as well as Brazil where Portuguese is the official
language.
8
In this essay, I emphasize the thematic analysis of Luso-African poetry since, as Manuel Ferreira points out: "é
difícil ao poeta africano com raízes acentuadas na cultura negra ... preso a hábitos, costumes, ritos, isto é, a uma
substancial tradição tribal, preocupar-se apenas com exercícios literários (no melhor sentido da expressão) tão
exigente é a voz da sua consciência atormentada" (No reino de Caliban: Antología panorámica da poesía
africana de expressão portuguesa, Tomos I, II, III, Lisboa, 1975: 39).
9
The concepts of "negrismo," "negritud," and "mulatez" are considered here more in a cultural than a racial
dimension. Therefore, these concepts overlap chronologically. Given that the majority of the critics of LusoAfro-American literature use these terms in diverse forms, I will specify their meanings throughout this essay.
For the moment, note that I use the French-derived term "negritud" as a global category which contains poetry
with social content written in Portuguese in Africa and America, principally, at the end of the nineteenth century
and beginning of the twentieth. In a parallel fashion, I use the French word "n6gritude" to refer, in particular, to
the artistic and theoretical movement regarding the revindication of African culture which began in Europe in the
1920s and whose principal leaders were the Antillean intellectual AimAs Usaire, the Senegalese poet Uopold
Sédar Sengor, and the French Guianese poet, Uon Damas. Additionally, Europeans such as the artists Picasso,
Matisse, and Bracque, also played a role in encouraging Western interest in African culture. Later on, the
German intellectual Jahnheinz Jahn would devote much of his scholarship to explaining and defending
négritude, by then under heavy attack, especially from Anglophone Africans.
10
Again, this concept cannot be directly translated into English, and it will be referred to in Spanish as "mulatez
poética."
11
Barreto Feio, José Victorino, and J. G. Monteiro, eds. Obras completas de Gil Vicente. 3 Vols. Hamburg: Na
Officina Typographica de Lanffioff, 1834. Vol. 3: 443.
12
Quoted by Oscar Fernández in: Iniciación a la poesía afro-americana (Miami, 1973:62).
13
Manuel Ferreira, No reino de Caliban: Antología panorámica da poesía africana de expressão portuguesa
(Lisboa, 1975). From this point on, I will indicate in parentheses Antología, the volume number, and page.
14
This solidarity can be noted in the journal Présence Africaine, founded in 1947 by Alioune Diop and now
edited by his wife, first gave a regular public voice to négritude. The first volume includes the following quote:
"Esta revista não se coloca sob a obediência de nenhuma ideologia filosôfica ou política. Pretende abrir-se à
colaboração de todos os hombres de boa vontade (brancos, amarelos ou negros), susceptíveis de os ajudar a
definir a originalidade africana e de contribuir para a sua inserção no mundo moderno" (Antología, I, 38).
15
"Candomblé" pays homage to the gods of the Yoruba, but as time passed these rituals fused and intertwined
with both Yoruba religion and Catholicism. For a standard study of the African pantheon in Brazil, see Arthur
Ramos, 0 negro brasileiro (São Paulo, 1940: 45).
16
Florence E. White, in her doctoral thesis, "Poesía negra in the works of Jorge de Lima. Nicolás Guillén and
Jacques Roumain 1927-1947," establishes six prevalent themes in Black poetry: religion; folklore; the mulata or
negra; scenes from the daily life of the Black; allusions to their social and economic problems; and, finally, the
theme of social revindication of the Black.
17
"Jitanjafórica" is the adjective form of "jitanjáfora," a term coined by Alfonso Reyes to refer to "una manera
de verso de pura sonoridad verbal apartada del sentido de los vocablos." This verbal musicality has been
employed in the Antillean, French, and Spanish poetry of Jacques Roumain, Luis Palés Matos, and Nicolás
Guillén.
18
Xangô is the Yoruba god of thunder and lightning. In Brazil this god coincides with Santa Barbara and San
Jerónimo. In the Northeast, "Xangô" also designates any ritual that is performed for an African god or spirit.
Oxum is the goddess of the African river of the same name, which flows into the Niger River. Oxalá or Obatalá
is the grandfather of Xangô, and a major god in the Yoruba pantheon - the Creator God. Ogun is the god of iron,
steel and earth. (Ramos, 156, 318, 319).
19
Another highly respected writer who represents the Afro-American poetry of negritud is the late Cuban poet
Nicolás Guillén, who was racially and culturally a mulatto and ideologically Marxist. Using literary techniques
associated with European surrealism, Guillén, like Lima, also articulates anti-imperialist political denunciation in
his poetry. (See especially the poems in his West Indies LTD.)