Book recovers interviews, letters and essays by Gilda de Mello e Souza

Edited by Walnice Nogueira Galvão, who researched the writings left by her friend, A palavra afiada recovers lost and even unknown texts by the essayist and great scholar of aesthetics.

By José Tadeu Arantes

Agência FAPESP – Priceless! It’s hard not to use an exclamation point when referring to A palavra afiada, a book that brings together interviews, testimonials, a variety of articles and letters by Gilda de Mello e Souza (1919-2005), essayist, art critic and founder of the Aesthetics Chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of São Paulo (USP). The fruit of years of dedication and detailed work by Walnice Nogueira Galvão, professor emeritus of the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences at USP, the book, now published, is a collection of texts that had been lost or even ignored.

“In 2006, I was approached by one of the three daughters of Gilda and Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza, Ana Luisa Escorel, owner of the Ouro sobre Azul publishing company, in Rio de Janeiro. Over the years, she had been re-editing the entire works of her parents, among other things. Because I had been good friends with Gilda and had done a long interview with her for the school’s magazine – an interview that Gilda herself considered to be the best she’d ever given – Ana Luisa asked me if I would like to compile and edit the various interviews that her mother had granted. Because I was quite a fan of the interviews, I immediately said yes,” recalled Galvão for Agência FAPESP.

“Little by little, looking here and there, I was able to gather several interviews together. As I say in the introduction, Gilda did not file things the usual way; she wasn’t a narcissist to the point of making files out of everything she did. Just the opposite. As soon as she would finish one thing, she would lose interest and go immediately to the next project. Thus, some of these interviews were found in completely unexpected places. The more I worked, the more I found other things as well: a series of brief articles and some longer ones that I didn’t even know existed and 10 of her letters to Mário de Andrade, which are a veritable treasure trove. Then, I sought out Ana Luisa and Antonio Candido, telling them what had been found and asking for their permission to write a book that would have three parts: the interviews, the short pieces and the letters to Mário de Andrade. They agreed, and this was wonderful because the book ended up being much more meaningful than we first imagined it would be,” Galvão explained.

Released on April 23 at the Maria Antonia University Center in São Paulo, A palavra afiada was added to the other works that Gilda published, such as A moda no século XIX (1952) (19th century fashion), O tupi e o alaúde (1979) (The Tupi and the lute), Exercícios de leitura (1980) (Reading exercises), O espírito das roupas (1987) (The spirit of clothing) and A ideia e o figurado (2005) (The idea and the figurative).

A pioneering path

Born March 24, 1919, into a traditional São Paulo family but raised in the inland part of the state on a farm in Araraquara, Gilda de Mello e Souza, whose maiden name was Moraes Rocha, was in many ways a pioneer. As one of the first women to study at USP, she was a student of the famous professors of the so-called “French Mission” – Roger Bastide, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jean Maugüé – earning her bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1940.

As one of the first women to reconcile family commitments with an intellectual career, she began teaching as an assistant to Bastide in the Sociology Department in 1942. After receiving an invitation from João Cruz Costa (1904-1978), she transferred to the Department of Philosophy in 1954, where she founded the aesthetics program, in which she taught until her retirement in 1973.

Her doctoral dissertation, written under the mentorship of Bastide and defended in 1950, was received with surprise and veiled contempt among those in academia because it dealt with a topic – fashion – considered futile in the narrow view of thinking that was predominant at the time. Only a quarter century later would the subject receive the appropriate intellectual recognition, when Roland Barthes published Système de la mode (The fashion system) in 1976.

“In her dissertation, the author gives an exegesis on women’s clothing in contrast to men’s, interpreting them as organizations of signs based on social and psychological roles. Above all, as she shows, they served two purposes: to emphasize the opposition between the genders and to symbolize class barriers,” Galvão wrote in the preface to A palavra afiada.

Between 1969 and 1972, during one of the most somber periods of Brazilian political history, Gilda, motivated by a sense of duty, assumed the chair of the Department of Philosophy at USP. She had been severely persecuted by the dictatorship after the 1964 military coup and even more so after the promulgation of Institutional Act number 5 in December 1968. “Faced with a leaderless department that had been plunged into disarray by the abrogation of civil and political rights, Gilda, although grudgingly, ended up in charge from 1969 to 1972. Her administration confronted battles that were neither few nor small,” Galvão stated in the preface.

The omnipresence of Mário de Andrade

During her studies at what was then called the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at USP, Gilda joined a small circle of brilliant young people who would establish the magazine Clima in 1941 and later play an enormous role in Brazil’s intellectual life. They were her companions and inseparable friends, including the sociologist Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza, the theater critic Decio de Almeida Prado, the movie critic Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, the anthropologist Ruy Coelho and the art critic Lourival Gomes Machado, among others. The social, psychological and cultural characteristics of this group were beautifully described by Gilda in the interview granted to Galvão, which is no doubt one of the high points of A palavra afiada.

She married Antonio Candido in 1943. From this marriage, which lasted over six decades (until her death on December 25, 2005), came three daughters: Ana Luisa Escorel, a designer and book publisher, and Laura de Mello e Souza and Marina de Mello e Souza, both historians and professors in the History Department at USP.

However, the greatest presence – practically omnipresence – in A palavra afiada is that of the poet, novelist and critic Mário de Andrade. The author of Pauliceia Desvairada (1922), Amar, Verbo Intransitivo (1927), Macunaíma (1928) and so many other defining or redefining works in Brazilian culture, was a cousin of Gilda’s father. He often visited the Araraquara ranch during his vacations. Additionally, when Gilda went to study in São Paulo, she stayed at his house, where he lived with his mother, Gilda’s great-aunt and godmother, along with other relatives.

This man, many years her senior and at the time already a national celebrity, became a type of intellectual mentor to the young woman. However, the relationship that she established with him, to which the ten letters published in A palavra afiada attest, was not one involving a disciple overly impressed and intimidated by the accomplished teacher, but rather one full of shades of gray, nuances and undertones. The way that she wrote to him while still so young is quite remarkable because of both its affectionateness and its acute self-observation and especially because of its style.

Also noteworthy, but for its testimonial value and humor, is the text “Mário de Andrade em família” (Mário Andrade in the Family), which is included in the book. This text was the result of a lecture that she gave at the São Paulo Cultural Center in 1992 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the 1922 Modern Art Week.

“The presence of Mário de Andrade in the book is quite impressive. More impressive than I had realized,” Galvão commented. “The letters cover only a small period, from 1938 to 1942. However, it was a decisive period in her life, when she was deciding what she wanted to study, whether she would or would not have a career and what she was going to do with her life. Mário de Andrade had an immeasurable influence on her during this period. In some ways, he served as the beacon that guided the rest of her life, at least from an intellectual standpoint. He did so by giving her ample freedom of choice.”

A palavra afiada
Editor: Walnice Nogueira Galvão
Release date: 04/23/2014
Price: R$ 48,00
Pages: 264

For more information visit: www.ourosobreazul.com.br/editora_catalogo_detalhe.asp?idl=51