Blaise Cendrars: The Third Element of the Movement Pau Brasil (?)

Abstract

This article offers a different insight into the relationship of the poet Blaise Cendrars with Brazilian modernists, seen by literary critics as directly responsible for the nationalist turn in Brazilian Modernism, and as a guide for Brazilians in their own nation. Cendrars is presented here as a third element in the “Pau Brasil” movement - composed by Tarsila do Amaral and Oswald de Andrade, the three sustained by the powerful shadow of Paulo Prado. We propose to reverse the traditional idea of a unilateral influence, in which the Brazilians are situated as debtors of the European famous poet to a relationship of reciprocal influences, suggesting a joint effort, which has resulted in three works: the books of poems Feuilles de route, by Blaise Cendrars, launched in 1924, and Poesia Pau Brasil, by Oswald de Andrade, published in 1925, and the exhibition by Tarsila do Amaral held at Galerie Percier in Paris in 1926.