[A Costela de Grão Cão]
Mário Raul de Morais Andrade was born in São Paulo in October 9, 1893. Brazilian writer, he was what is denominated polygraph, which means that he wrote about the most different themes and used several forms of expression: poetry, essay, fiction, musicology and criticism, besides his career as professor and journalist. The driving force of Brazilian modernism, he has still a big influence on practically all Brazilian cultural activities. After his first studies in São Paulo, he attended at the Musical Dramatic Conservatory, where he was named cathedratic of history of music and esthetic, in 1922.
Mário de Andrade’s first work as a poet was published in 1917: ‘Há uma gota de Sangue em Cada Poema’, with the pseudonym of Mário Sobral. In this his first book was already well-known the seeds of his posterior revolutionary work. It was, however, with the Week Of Modern Art of 22, of which he was one of the mentors and organizer, that he got the title of the most important figure in Brazilian Literature from 1922 to 1945. In ‘Paulicéia Desvairada’, published in 1922, he presented a poetry without metric, free of subconscious associations, and he theorized in its preface the essence of the esthetic in the modernist movement. It provoked a scandal of critical and public. At this same year, he begins his contact with Manuel Bandeira, which occurs during all his life. In 1930, with ‘Remates de Males’, he returns to the metric, but with freedom of rhymes and rhythms.
In the fiction area, in 1927, he was the author of ‘Amar, Verbo Intransitivo’ that was turned into a film by Lauro Escorel [Lição de Amor – 1975] and ‘Macunaíma’, in 1928, adapted to the screen by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, in 1969. As critic and essayist, he wrote ‘A Escrava que não é Isaura’, among others. He also is the author of several musicological studies, like ‘Ensaio sobre a música brasileira e da letra e da música de diversas composições populares’.
Named as director of the São Paulo's Department of Culture, in 1936, he organized courses of ethnography and folklore, created the first public record library in Brazil and promoted the I Congress of Sung Language. In February of 1938 he formed a team of researchers for the purpose of making a map of the Brazilian traditional music – the ‘Missão de Pesquisas Folclóricas’ –, whose first stage is realized in the North and Northeast of the country. From this journey comes the patrimony of registers in film, audio, images, musical comments, considered the first "multimedia project" of Brazilian culture, unfortunately interrupted when Mário de Andrade is dismissed from the Department of Culture, at this same year.
He then takes residence in Rio de Janeiro, where was professor of Philosophy and Art, in the Federal District University, also directing its Art Institute. An apart chapter in his without limits literary production is constituted by his large and interesting correspondence uninterruptedly kept with colleagues such as Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, Tarsila do Amaral, Fernando Sabino, Augusto Meyer and others. His letters conserved, under rule, the same delicious prose of his creations with words, a lyricism that, as he himself said, "was born in the subconscious mind, founded in a clear or confused thought, it creates phrases that are entire verses, without damage to measure so many syllables, with determinate accentuation".
Mário de Andrade passes away in São Paulo, February 25, 1945, fully recognized for his role in the avant-garde movement that he carried out in three decades of work.
Illustration: Mário's portrait by Lasar Segall
Translation of this biography: Regina Gaeta