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Cecília Benevides Meireles (1901-1964) |
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Brazilian journalist, teacher, and poet, who focused often on the themes of the passing of time and meaningless of life. Cecília Meireles wrote in Portuguese. She is considered one of the most important poets of the second phase of the Brazilian Modernism. Meireles traveled a great deal and her traveling became an integral part of her literary production. As a teacher she did much to promote educational reforms. She also advocated the construction of children's libraries. Eu canto porque o instante existe Cecília Benevides de Carvalho Meireles was born in Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara. Her father, Carlos Alberto de Carvalho, died three months before her birth. Mathide Benevides, her mother, who was an elementary school teacher, died when Cecília was three. The three other children of this marriage died before Cecìlia was born. She was brought up by her Portugese grandmother in Rio, who came from Azores. She told her stories from her birth place, and these stories later found their way to her poetry. From her nanny, Pedrina, Cecília learned Brazilian folk songs and games. Meireles started to compose poems at the age of nine. She attended normal school in Rio from 1913 to 1916 and after graduating, Meireles was educated as a teacher. However, she continued to study languages, literature, educational theory and method, music, and folklore. In 1921 she married the Portuguese painter Fernando Correia Dias. They had three daughters, Maria Elvira, Maria Mathilde and Maria Fernenda, who became a famous actress. Fernando was a friend of the poet Fernando Pessoa. Suffering from acute depression, he committed suicide in 1936. Six years later Meireles married the diplomat Heitor Grillo, who helped to raise her daughters. On Meireles' initiative the first children's library in Brazil was founded in 1934 – she also wrote several children's books. Meireles run the Children's Center at the Mourisco Pavilion, which was invaded by the police 1937. A book in the library's collection, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, was said to contain "communist connotations". ('Cecilia Meirelles in the Diario de Noticias: the daily struggle for the Escola Nova (June 1930 to October 1930)' by Claudinei Magno Magre Mendes, Acta Scientiarum. Education, Vol. 39, Issue 4, 2017, p. 379; https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/3033/303352894004_2.pdf. Accessed 1 July 2025) Meireles lectured on Brazilian literature in Portugal and in 1936 she was appointed lecturer at the new Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. In 1940 she was a visiting professor of Brazilian literature and culture at the University of Texas. As a poet Meireles made her debut at the age of eighteen, with
Espectros (1919).
It has been described as "an airy and vague poetry, languid and fluid,
set in an atmosphere of shadows and dreams." The collection of
seventeen sonnets dealt with various historical personages. Although
her next collections included lyrics in free verse, she still stick to
traditional forms and French symbolism. Between 1919 and 1927 Meireles contributed to the magazines Arvore Nova and Terra do Sol. The spiritual and transcendental magazine Festa (Festival) started to publish her poems from 1922. The Festa poets supported more traditional expression and universality than the futurists and avant-garde writers of São Paolo, whose Modern Art Week in 1922 caused much controversy. The work of the Spiritualists in Rio de Janeiro was defined by tradition and mystery. Meireles' poetry always retained symbolist traits – much modernist writing after World War I was symbolist in spirit. Especially Portuguese poetry started to interest her. She visited Portugal in 1934 and lectured there on Brazilian literature at the universities of Lisbon and Coimbra. "Cecília Meireles was a Catholic Platonist whose poetry "sings," and John Nist has said that she is distinguished from other major figures of Brazilian modernism by the universality of her concerns." ('Meireles, Cecília,' in World Authors 1970-1975, edited by John Wakeman, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1980, p. 550) Meireles contributed to the liberal newspaper Diario de Noticías,
founded in 1930 in Rio de Janeiro by the journalist Orlando Ribeiro
Dantas. She directed the 'Education Page'. Meireles advocated
educatioanl reform, often intertwined with political and ideological
discourses. Her collaboration ended in January 1933. After 14 years of silence as a poet, Meireles published one of
her major works, Viagém
(1939), which marked her poetic maturity. The book received the Poetry
Prize from the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1939. Its most quoted
poem is 'Motivo,' in which she declared her poetical credo, that her "singing"is
everything to her, all
that matters. The title refers
to a spiritual journey where life and poetry join together. Although Meireles was a devout Catholic, she brought religious themes rarely to the fore. She was always faitful to
herself, to her own lyrical experience, and strived for perfection. "Cecília, you are as
independent and exact / As a seashell / But a seashell is too much matter, / And matter kills," wrote Manuel Bandeira in
'Improviso,' a poem dedicated to her. (quoted in The Modernist Movement in Brazil: A Literary Study by John Nist, Austin & London: University of Texas Press, 1967, p. 191) From the 1940s Meireles traveled widely and the sea
became her an important image. Mar Absoluto (1942) was sea
poetry with quality of "pure poetry." In 1953 Meireles participated in a
symposium on the work of Gandhi. During her stay Meireles was decreed Doctoris Honoris Causa at the
University of Delhi. India had a great influence on her
work. Meireles had taught herself both Hindu and Sanskrit. Romanceiro
da Inconfidência
(1953) was written in the style of the fifteenth-century Spanish
romances. The work draws its subject from the first colonial attempt at
Brazilian Independence, in Minas Gerais in 1789, and centers on the
leader of the uprising, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, who was hailed as
another Jesus Christ. Giroflê, Giroflá (1956) was based
on the author's journeys to India and Italy. Meireles contributed prolifically to Brazilian periodicals. She translated into Brazilian such diverse writers as Maeterlinck, Lorca, Anouilh, Ibsen, Tagore, Rilke, Virginia Woolf, and Pushkin. Her other works include plays and children's books. Cecília Meireles died of cancer in Rio de Janeiro on November 9, 1964. 'Cantar de Vero Amor,' which she wrote shortly before her death, expressed her love for her husband, who had provided emotional stability in her life. During her career Meireles was affected by many of the literary movements of her time. However, her poetry always remained intensely personal. She was counted among the modernists, but she did not break with the Portuguese lyrical tradition. For further reading: An Introduction to Modern Brazilian Poetry by L.S. Downes (1954); Modern Brazilian Poetry, ed. by John Nist (1962); Uma voz do Brazil by Amélia Vilar (1965); The Modernist Movement in Brazil by John Nist (1967); An Introduction to Literature in Brazil by Afrânio Coutinho (1969); The Modernist Idea: A Critical Survey of Brazilian Writing in the Twentieth Century by Wilson Martins (1970); 'Meireles, Cecília.' in World Authors 1970-1975, ed. by John Wakeman (1980); Imagery and Theme in the Poetry of Cecília Meireles: A Study of Mar Absoluto by Darlene Sadlier (1983); Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature, ed. by Verity Smith (1997); 'Meireles, Cecília (1901-1964)' by James J. Davis, in The Facts on File Companion to World Poetry: 1900 to the Present, ed. R. Victoria Arana (2008); Cecília Meireles: lirismo e religiosidade by Graça Roriz Fonteles (2010); Cecília Meireles: imaginário, poesia e educação by Luzia Batista de Oliveira Silva (2011); Cecília Meireles e a Travel in Brazil (1941-1942) by Luís Antônio Contatori Romano (2019); Uma homenagem a Cecília Meireles by Ida Vicenzia (2023) Selected works:
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