Nineteenth-century Brazilian literary production circulated around the globe

The reciprocal exchange of books and other print media among Brazil, France, Portugal and England at the time contradicts the paradigm of Brazil as a backwards and culturally dependent country.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – At the beginning of the 19th century, a reader in Rio de Janeiro could order a newly released book in Paris, France, and receive it in 28 days, the time necessary for it to be transported by ship to Brazil. This time is also approximately equivalent to the modern-day delivery deadlines of foreign e-commerce companies, such as U.S.-based Amazon, for orders shipped to Brazil without express delivery.

During the same historical period, the works of Brazilians such as Marília de Dirceu from Tomás Antônio Gonzaga (1744-1810) were translated into French, Italian, Latin and Russian, much like today’s best-selling books, which are almost always launched simultaneously in different languages. 
 
As these examples indicate, the globalization of culture is not a process that began in the 20th century with the advent of information and communication technologies. Indeed, it dates back to the beginning of the 16th Century – when the Spanish and Portuguese began to travel the globe – and intensified in the 19th century, when books and print media began to circulate as a special way of connecting people in different parts of the planet, as the internet does today.

To study the phenomenon from a transnational prospective, researchers in Brazil, Portugal, France and England began a Thematic Project with FAPESP-funding with the objective of better understanding the print media and ideas that circulated among the four countries between 1789 and 1914.

During this period, known as the “long 19th century”, there was a notable expansion of public readership. Moreover, technological changes, such as the expansion of European railways and the development of steamboats, facilitated the dissemination and circulation of print media to distant parts of the world.

In this period, countries began to define themselves as nations that wanted to be separate from others. Moreover, at the same time in which the integration process gained momentum, Brazilian books were translated into French and published as a feuilleton in Paris newspapers, and the works of French authors also traveled in the opposite direction.

“The translation of books into a feuilleton made it possible for people in different places in the world to be connected because they read the same story at more or less the same time in newspapers,” says Marcia Azevedo de Abreu, professor at Universidade Estadual de Campinas’ Language Studies Institute (Unicamp – IEL) and project coordinator, in an interview with Agência FAPESP.

“A chapter of a new release in France was sent by ship and translated in Brazil. Sometimes the author grew ill, for example, and the translation could not come out in Brazil,” comments the researcher.

In the period, books and manifestos were also released by Brazilian intellectuals, who studied in universities in Portugal and France and became members of important foreign academic institutions, such as the Historical Institute of Paris.

During their stay in France, for example, Brazilians met and established relationships with the native intellectuals, who helped them to release publications such as the magazine Niterói.

In the magazine, which first circulated in Paris and had to be imported by readers in Brazil, the Brazilian poet Gonçalves de Magalhães (1811-1882) published the first Brazilian Romantic Manifesto.

The first French translation of The Guarani by José de Alencar (1829-1877) was also published in a feuilleton in the 19th century under the title Les filles du Soleil (The Daughters of the Sun) in a newspaper launched in France by a group of Brazilians to promote Brazil in the European country.

“Some of the major Brazilian authors were also printed first in France by Baptiste Louis Garnier, who was the biggest Brazilian editor of the 19th century, because it was more expensive to import white paper than printed paper in Brazil at the time,” comments Abreu.

“Furthermore, it was more chic for Brazilian readers to buy a book printed in France, and the editor exploited this in advertising, highlighting that the work had just arrived from Paris or writing on the first page of the work that it was printed in France,” notes the researcher.

In contrast, according to Abreu, as soon as the prohibition on book printing in Brazil ended in 1808, certain book publishers, such as the Frenchman Paul Martin, began to publish books in Brazil and export them to Portugal, where the family of French publishers also had a bookstore. Portugal thus played an important role in the process of literary integration between the two countries through translations.

In the 19th century, the French language served as a universal standard of reference. Works from countries worldwide were translated into French, the language that the whole world read and from which countries made translations into their official languages.

When they recognized that a certain work released in France was a success, the Portuguese soon sought to translate it into their language and send it to Brazil. The elite classes in Brazil often read in French, but this process allowed people beyond the elite classes to have access to the work.

“Brazil was the recipient of many books from Portugal. The Portugese were very active, translated the works very quickly, printed the translations and sent them here,” comments Abreu.

“But it was not only Brazilians that expected the foreigners to send works here. Foreigners also expected Brazil to send its works abroad,” stresses the researcher.

The myth of backwardness and cultural dependence

In the researcher’s evaluation, the discoveries made in the first year of the research project contradicted the paradigm that Brazil was always culturally behind other countries and received more cultural influence than it exerted.

“We also learn that France culturally influenced Portugal, which then influenced Brazil, and that the cultural influence stopped there. But we have observed that books and printed materials also left Brazil and went to these countries and that the exchanges between them were not equal but reciprocal,” said Abreu.

The first history of Brazilian literature, for example, was written by the French national Ferdinand Denis (1798-1890), who published a book entitled the A summary of the literary history of Brazil in France in 1826.

One of the most important works of Victor Hugo (1802-1885), the romance Les Misérables, was published in Brazil before it was even released in France, due to an exclusive contract with the French author, according to a story published in the Jornal do Commercio on March 10, 1862, and confirmed by researchers, boasting that the whole world should be envious of Brazil because of the feat.

“We found that these connections between Brazil and other countries have long existed and that there was no idea of delay, dependence or cultural influence,” said Abreu.

“It is not that Brazil was the center of the universe in the 19th century. But it was not as backward as we are accustomed to thinking, and the country was in tune with others at the time, at least from the point of view of reading,” affirmed the researcher.

According to Abreu, one of the factors that contributed to this false perception of cultural delays in Brazil in relation to the world is that economics and culture are considered inseparable.

As the country was not economically developed in the 19th century, it is assumed that Brazil’s culture was also behind that of other countries and was strongly dependent and influenced by those countries.

“One of the important preliminary conclusions of this research project is that the economy and the culture are not as tightly linked as imagined. In the same country that had slaves and was economically dependent, books circulated that were read at the same time here as in Paris,” adds Abreu.

Continuing studies

The researchers are seeking to identify the editors who operated transnationally and to determine how many and which Brazilian authors had their works translated in the 19th century.

The study is being conducted in libraries in addition to the archives of publishers, booksellers and the police in Brazil and three other countries participating in the project. The information in these archives makes it possible to analyze, for example, the commercial contracts of booksellers with Brazilians and to learn which publishers set up shop in Brazil.

According to Abreu, the project should gain greater momentum now following the São Paulo School of Advanced Sciences on Globalization of Culture in the 19th Century, which was held at the end of August at IEL and Universidade de São Paulo (USP) with FAPESP funding.

The event brought together post-graduate professors and students from several countries that can join the project.

“We are in the stage of the exploration and establishment of partnerships with researchers from France, Portugal and England, some of whom know each other and have worked together. And the São Paulo Advanced School of Sciences has allowed all these researchers to spend a week together and hear suggestions from other studies to integrate their references,” comments Abreu.