F-Essay

**MANUEL BANDEIRA: LIFE, DISEASE, AND POETRY**

 * PART 1: POSTED BY MARINA (PURPLE)**

Manuel Carneiro de Souza Bandeira Filho was born on April 19th, 1886. When He was four years old his family and he moved to Rio de Janeiro, and later on to Santos, and again to Rio de Janeiro. They came back to Recife, Pernanbuco, in 1892, where Bandeira entered the “Irmãos Barros Barretos College”. In 1896 the Bandeira’s moved back to Rio and Manuel entered the “Externato do Ginásio Nacional College”. When he was 17 years old, he started a new fase in his life. His family was now living in São Paulo and he entered the “Escola Politécnica” to become an architect. He also started studying drawing and painting, focusing his ideal in the architecture. However, in the end of 1904, he found out that he had tuberculoses, and this fact, changed his life. He moved to Rio de Janeiro looking for better weathers for his health. Six years later, he entered a contest of Poetry, from “Academia Brasileira de Letras” (The Brazilian Academy of Literature). In this contest he suffered influence of several authors, such as //Apollinaire, Charles Cros e Mac-Fionna Leod,// and started writing his first free lines. He moved to Switzerland to find a treatment to his serious disease, but came back in 1914 due to the Great War. When he came back, he released his first book of poems, called //“A Cinza das Horas”//. In the following year, he published his second book //“Carnaval”.// Both of his books received great compliments of modernists’ writers. Manuel Bandeira didn’t join the Week of Modern Arts, in 1922, but one of his poems, “Os Sapos” was read by Ronald de Carvalho. In 1924 he published “//Poesias”,// including the poems in //“A cinza das Horas”, “Carnaval”// and some new poems. In 1937, after publishing //“Libertinagem”,// he received an award of “Sociedade Felipe de Oliveira”, and in 1940 he was chosen to occupy a place in the “Academia Brasileira de Letras”, a great recognition of his work. From this day on, he published a lot of poems and proses, made various critics and worked as a professor in “Faculdade Nacional de Filosofia”. In October 13th, 1968, died Manuel Bandeira, in Samaritano’s Hospital, 80 years old. **PART 2: POSTED BY PATRÍCIA (PINK)** Manuel Bandeira is a referential in the Brazilian Modernist Poetry. His poems are of a unique delicacy and beauty; these are one of the reasons which make his work still very important nowadays. Manuel Bandeira was formed in the basis of theliterary referencesof the Parnassianand Symbolism. However, hewas notconcerned about suiting those trends, butrather givinga masterly manner he wished to conveyemotions in his creations. Even being part of Modernism, Bandeira did not losesensitivity , and the romantic aspects enriched hispoetry. Therefore, his work is modernist as he is a poet of sentimental accuracy, rejecting the ornamentation of the Romanism. He wrote poem, prose and anthology. Thus, i t is possible to divide his creations into threebasicsections : The post- symbolist, in whichtraces are related to thedecadentspiritof Symbolism,formalas well asmusicality. Themodernist phase, in which he " directs" his verses toalanguagewrapped inaconversational tone , making useoffree verseand white. And, the post- modernist, in which he makesasort ofblend betweenthe uses ofrhymedverseand traditionalwith the use offree verseand whiteas well aspopular formssuch asrondo, characterized bya poemwith onlytworhymes andconsisting of threestanzas , totaling fifteen12 verses. In all the phases, he mentions childhood, love and death. Consequently, Bandeira’s work has influenced many writers and readers who have always made his work grow and renew, hence it became immortalized and important in the Brazilian Literature.


 * PART 3: POSTED BY MARINA (PURPLE) **

Manuel Bandeira discovered that he was suffering from tuberculoses in the end of 1904. Usually this disease comes little by little, but with Bandeira, it was different. The tuberculoses came abruptly and strong. In that time, this diagnose was like a death sentence, because tuberculoses was a very difficult disease to treat. In order to live the healthiest life he could, Manuel went to Rio de Janeiro, looking for better airs. He lived in Teresópolis, Petrópolis, moved Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais, Campos do Jordão, Maranguape, Uruquê and Quixeramobim. Finally, in the hope to find a better treatment for his health problem, he went to Europe, Switzerland. There, in his words, he said “I was living like die, don’t die, die… and in 1914 I asked the Doctor Bodner how many years I would live, he answered: You have injuries incompatible with life. However you don’t have bacilli, eat well, sleep well, and don’t seem to have any alarming symptoms. You may live five, ten, fifteen years, who knows? So I kept on waiting the death to come at any moment in my life, always living like it was provisory. Bandeira had serious scars in his right lung and his left lung was completely destroyed. They become almost useless and Manuel suffered from long crises of cough that he learned to control when he was in Switzerland. Every morning Bandeira used to make the called “bronchial toilet”. He tried as much as he could to cough, in order to eliminate the phlegm that accumulated during the night. After the lunch, he used to rest and only then, he used to go out to the city life. Manuel Bandeira had a hard life living together with the disease that never left his side. Although he was always waiting for his final day to come, he was a very positive man who believed in life till the very end. Manuel Bandeira didn’t die from tuberculoses as expected. He was 82 years old when he died from a problem with his heart.


 * PART 4: POSTED BY RAÍSSA (RED)**

It is possible to notice the relationship between this disease and his work. In the poem “Pneumothorax” Manuel Bandeira makes ​​reference to his illness - the tuberculosis, with irony and sarcasm. He lists the symptoms of the disease and illustrates an appointment with his doctor, who concludes that given the impossibility of a pneumothorax the only way out for the hectic would be "an Argentine tango”, as it is written below:

— You have a hole in the left lung and seepage into the right. — Well, doctor, isn´t possible to try a pneumothorax? — No. The only thing you can do is play an Argentine tango. Towards this diagnosis, Bandeira had nothing else to do except wait for death and dream of another life. In the poem “I am going away to Pasargada”, Bandeira pursues the utopia, the evasion, the place where he can escapes from death, where the disease simply did not exist, where the childhood will be revived. He dreams with a kind of paradise to experience the ordinary acts of life, which cannot be realized due to illness, where he could do whatever he wants, free of constraints, and could be simply happy. This poem has some others common themes addressed by Bandeira in his poems, like the expression of love, eroticism, women, beauty, desire and the nostalgia of childhood, the opposition between child and adult, time present and time past, questioning the past may have been better than the present time. I am going away to Pasargada There I am friend of the king There I have the woman I want On the bed that I shall choose I am going away to Pasargada. As Bandeira lived his entire life with the disease, many times the act of writing was also influenced by it. In the poem “Disenchantment”, he claims how is difficult to him to write about himself, and how sad his life and, consequently, his verses are: “I write these lines as one weeping, / Discouraged ... disenchanted .../. "Swallow", a poem of intense synthesizes the feeling of melancholy tinged with humor, so present in his poems about death.

__Swallow by Manuel Bandeira __ Outside the swallow is saying: "I have spent all day in vain, in vain! "Swallow, swallow <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">My song is yet sadder! <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">"I have spent all life in vain, in vain... <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Finally, Bandeira represents in his poems, the total eradication of being a disappearing "of body and soul" that does not leave traces of their existence even in the historical memory of men. In “Absolute Death” he is familiar to the death, and shows his proximity with it. <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">To die so completely <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">That one day when somebody sees your name on a page <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">He will ask: “Who was he?...” <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">To die still more completely: <span style="color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Without leaving even this name.

**PART 5: POSTED BY WAGNER (GREEN):**

<span style="color: #006600; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">The relationship between the poetic speaker and the author himself is clear in his poems. //Poetic speaker// is defined as “the narrative or elegiac voice in a poem (such as a sonnet, ode, or lyric) that speaks of his or her situation or feelings. It is a convention in poetry that the speaker is //not// the same individual as the historical author of the poem. Based on this definition it is not possible to think of Manuel Bandeira as being the same person than his works poetic speaker. On the other hand that convention somehow “falls down” if we think that tuberculosis, disease, and death, things experienced by him, are brought to his work, specially his poems. <span style="color: #006600; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">The poem “My Last Poem” illustrates the classical romantic (from Romanticism) feeling that death is the solution and the liberation of all life’s problems, in this case, his disease: <span style="color: #006600; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">I would like my last poem thus <span style="color: #006600; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">That it be gentle saying the simplest and least intended things <span style="color: #006600; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">That it be ardent like a tearless sob <span style="color: #006600; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">That it have the beauty of almost scentless flower <span style="color: #006600; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">The purity of the flame in which the most limpid diamonds are consumed <span style="color: #006600; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">The passion of suicides who kill themselves without explanation.

<span style="color: #006600; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Manuel Bandeira’s tuberculosis was detected when he was only 18 years old and then he lived 64 years with his illness. This fact was considered by him as a reason to die and then be free of his suffering and sick life. <span style="color: #006600; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Innumerous examples found in Bandeira’s work prove that his poetic speaker is more than that, “he” can be thought as being Manuel Bandeira.

**<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">CONCLUSION POSTED BY MARINA, PATRÍCIA, RAISSA AND WAGNER JUNIOR. (LAST EDITION DONE ON TUESDAY 15TH 2011) ** On the whole, Manuel Bandeira’s work has been a great contribution to Brazilian Literature, since he wrote several masterpieces of our literature and became a canonical writer. As many writers have done Bandeira put his life experiences into his poems, thus this fact enriched his writings about death, love, childhood, and, in a special way, his disease, which is the main focus of this paper, what could not be different since he lived 65 years with the sickness,   waiting for the death and writing. Als o, his influence on many authors and readers has been of a great importance to keep his wo r k alive up to nowadays. For us, readers, what remains is to read Bandeira's work with the same feeling and passion with which he wrote it and allow ourselves to appreciate his talent and mastery.