Founding texts of Portuguese-Brazilian critical reception of João Cabral de Melo Neto

Abstract

In the foundation of the Portuguese-Brazilian critical reception of João de Cabral de Melo Neto’ poetry two reviews stand out, one by Antonio Candido on Pedra do sono (Sleep of Stone) and another one by Vitorino Nemésio on O engenheiro (The Engineer). Candido’s review, published in 1943 in the Brazilian newspaper Folha da Manhã (São Paulo, Brazil), constitutes the first literary criticism on the poet outside of Cabral’s Brazilian Northeast region. In his text, the critic anticipates in the young newcomer the promise of a great future poet and also establishes, even before the poet had defined his own poetic style, a certain way of reading his work, according to a criterion of evaluating Cabral’s poetry still predominant today in its reception. The review by Vitorino Nemésio, published in the Diário Popular (Lisbon, Portugal) in 1949, constitutes the first criticism on Cabral’s poetry in Portugal. Nemésio highlights in O engenheiro aspects that tend to be obliterated on the part of further criticism on Cabral’s poetry. I propose to rescue and comment on these two reviews, trying to reflect on their role in the poet’s critical reception.