[In the following essay, Pontiero discusses the ways in which Drummond's poetry deals with the theme of human love and points out the evolution of the poet's techniques and styles.]

—É um amor

perfeito? perfeito da china? perfeito do mato? perfeito azul? perfeito bravo? próprio? materno? filial? incestuoso? livre? platônico? socrático? de vaqueiro? de carnaval? de cigano? de perdição? de hortelão? de negro? de deus? do próximo? sem olho? à patria? bruxo? que não ousa dizer o nome?

« A Eterna Imprecisãn de Linguagem »

[Caminhos de João Brandão]

The most searching of Carlos Drummond de Andrade's meditations on love are to be found in a central collection of verse, Claro Enigma, published in 1951, and the crux of the poet's Ars Amoris is to be found in “Amar”, the opening poem of his Notícias Amorosas.

Que pode uma criatura senão,
entre criaturas, amar?
amar e esquecer,
amar e malamar,
amar, desamar, amar?
sempre, e até de olhos vidrados, amar?
Que pode, pergunto, o ser amoroso,
sozinho, em rotação universal, senão
rodar também, e amar?
amar o que o mar traz à praia,
o que ele sepulta, e o que, na brisa marinha,
é sal, ou precisão de amor, ou simples ânsia?

The restless quality in the rhythm and the relentless interrogations convey the poet's anxiety in the face of an unresolved dilemma. The poem raises questions to which there are no immediate or easy answers. For love, the cipher and essence of our humanity, is the one sphere of activity capable of exposing our limitations as transitory beings with immortal souls. Love finds us in constant oscillation between all that is best and worst in our natures. The poet plays with the word love itself as if trying to whittle away the vague excrescences, as if some new variant or ingenious combination of sound might suddenly reveal unsuspected clarification. The neologisms malamar and desamar emphasise the misunderstandings and deceptions with which mankind destroys love's ideals even to the point of reducing the exercise to one of mutual aggression.

Yet love endures as the only effective palliative at the disposal of man in his battle against unhappiness and solitude.

Amar solenemente as palmas do deserto,
o que é entrega ou adoração expectante,
e amar o inóspito, o áspero,
um vaso sem flor, um chão de ferro,
e o peito inerte, e a rua vista em sonho, e uma ave de rapina.
Este o nosso destino: amor sem conta,
distribuido pelas coisas pérfidas ou nulas,
doação ilimitada a uma completa ingratidão,
e na concha vazia do amor a procura medrosa,
paciente, de mais e mais amor.
Amar a nossa falta mesma de amor, e na secura nossa
amar a água implícita, e o beijo tácito, e a sede infinita.

Love as conceived by Drummond extends itself to everyone and everything around us, frequently ill-directed “distribuído pelas coisas pérfidas ou nulas” and hovering uneasily between “entrega” and “adoração expectante”. The relationship between the lover and the person or object loved opens up new uncertainties as the widening gulf between our aspirations and what we actually achieve in each new quest for love reveals something imperfect and incomplete in our nature. The pursuit of love tortures man like some unassuaged thirst: “na concha vazia do amor a procura medrosa, paciente, de mais e mais amor”. There is much that seems futile, impossible and even absurd in this tense game where man is put to the test and his motives questioned as he confuses base lust with elevated passion, good faith with self-interest, and a caring relationship with tyrannical possession.

The poems of Claro Enigma offer Drummond's most lucid commentary on love as it manifests itself in human affairs. Man's emotional responses are scrutinized by the perceptive, intransigent eye of a poet who in middle age has attained a degree of objectivity and composure. The poems in this collection provide a vital key to Drummond's basic attitude to the human condition, his inimitable combination of caution and compassion as he unravels the paradoxical nature of this delicate terrain. Love is seen to be as vital as the air we breathe, a principle of sustained absolutes yet ever varied and surprising in its range of moods and manifestations—a principle that extends from sensuous euphoria to humiliating impotence.

From the outset, Drummond has recognised how even the most crude sexual encounter between two human beings reveals more forcefully than any other human activity the duality in man's nature between spirit and flesh and the chasm between a desire for spiritual uplift and degradation. This particular conflict has exercised the minds of poets in every age but Drummond eschews any romantic solutions by adopting an attitude of factual acceptance and by studying the possibility of coming to terms with the inherent paradoxes without recourse to divinities or metaphysics.

To come to terms with emotional experience without expecting or demanding too much from other human beings goes quite some way towards accepting existence as it is rather than as we would prefer it. This philosophy in turn presupposes conditions of spiritual resilience and a capacity for self-sacrifice. For if love is the pivotal force at the heart of all that is worthwhile about human activity, it is also the delicate territory where we might easily mistake the sordid for the sublime and suffer moral defeat where we hope to triumph.

A mood of introspection dominates throughout the verses of Claro Enigma—the poet's personal insights are constantly measured against universal concepts governing existence. The mature love to which the poet refers in his “Campo de Flores” reveals a new awareness and confidence when confronted by the contradictions of love. No longer impetuous or desgovernado, the poet himself now loves with “grave paciência”, prepared for the emotional turmoil and capable of converting “o sagrado terror” into jubilação.

Drummond's exploration of the love theme from the poesia piada of the twenties to the more thoughtful poems of his middle period onwards effectively charts the various stages in the poet's development. The emotional register changes key as the poet himself progresses from adolescent curiosity to the more restrained mood of “amor crepuscular”. In time, he discovers a different form of loving with its own satisfactions and rewards; a love which is more expansive and at the same time more sensitive to nuances—

Hoje tenho um amor e me faço espaçoso
.....Seu grão de angústia amor já me oferece
na mão esquerda. Enquanto a outra acaricia
os cabelos e a voz e o passo e a arquitetura
e o mistério que além faz os seres preciosos
à visão extasiada.

Here the poet has passed beyond love's external gestures to its mysteries and inner essence. The sentiments of these lines are altogether remote from the jest and banter of the mock-sentimental lyrics in Alguma Poesia. The central core of love has gradually become the focal point of the poet's meditation. Youthful histrionics have been replaced by an admirable combination of experience and composure. The panache and provocative utterances of “O Amor bate na Aorta” (Brejo das Almas) is succeeded by the spiritual crisis of Sentimento do Mundo before attaining that tranquillity of spirit which comes with age. The mature Drummond counsels his readers “Há que amar e calar”. With the passage of time, the poet himself has found a new strength in the vinho/sangue of innumerable loves, and he has finally learned to live with his own emotional conflicts. Armed with greater self-knowledge, he expresses a new confidence about human relationships as frenzied desire yields to patient acceptance. The world which until yesterday had seemed to him to be “um vacuo atormentado, um sistema de erros” is now viewed with greater optimism. He is even prepared to question the cynicism which characterized so many of his early poems on the theme of love when he debates: “… talvez a ironia tenha dilacerado a melhor doação.”

The mysterious rites of love as humans find themselves torn between pain and joy, consolation and bitterness, Christian ideals and hedonistic sensuality are evaluated with an impressive lucidity in ‘Rapto’ where the eagle's soaring flight becomes the radiant symbol of man's instinctive pursuit of “o cândido alimento”. But while the eagle charts its flight through “terrenas delícias combinadas”, man flounders in stagnant waters of ambiguity—the reality of the love game is ever inferior to the dream, and a painful reminder of our limitations and utter fragility as human beings. In the closing lines of “Tarde de Maio” it is made clear that if love is man's most precious possession it is also wide open to misunderstanding and abuse:

Se morro de amor, todos o ignoram
e negam. O próprio amor se desconhece e maltrata.
O próprio amor se esconde, ao jeito dos bichos
caçados; não está certo de ser amor, há tanto lavou
a memória das impurezas de barro e folha em que
repousava. E resta perdida no ar, por que melhor
se conserve, uma particular tristeza, a imprimir
seu selo nos nuvens.

The poet's search for a purer love and inner meaning is now firmly directed to nature and things inanimate rather than to humans. Mankind has consistently proved itself to be unworthy of love's gifts and insights “tornam amor humor e vago e brando / o que é de natureza corrosiva” (“Entre O Ser E As Coisas”) but who can entirely fault human beings for these shortcomings when even the very elements of the created world appear to register love's lessons without actually capturing their essence:

Here is another of those significant reversals wherein the poet stresses the eternal dichotomy between ignorance and knowledge, between truth and illusion. The taut rhythms of the verses match the rigour and concision of the poet's thought processes—the fruit of a lengthy and probing meditation.

E nem os elementos encantados
sabem do amor que os punge e que é, pungindo,
uma fogueira a arder no dia findo.

The gravity of his conclusion is tempered here by Drummond's inimitable restraint as if apologising for the gloomy nature of his insights. Austerity and understatement come more naturally to Drummond than stridency or fierce indictment when defining the deepest traumas. One can readily identify with the poet's feelings of regret in “Canção Para Álbum de Moça” as yet another promising encounter comes to nothing and the vision of a young woman recedes into the distance. Hopes of a meaningful relationship evaporate and potential intimacies are left unspoken: The poet's sense of frustration is overwhelming:

Bom dia: eu dizia à moça
que de longe me sorria.
Bom dia: mas da distância
ela nem me respondia.
Em vão a fala dos olhos
e dos braços repetia
bom-dia à moça que estava,
de noite como de dia,
bem longe de meu poder
e de meu pobre bom-dia.

There is a telling accuracy in Drummond's unaffected account of the basic uncertainties which thwart so many promising encounters from the outset.

Despite the jest and apparent nonchalance which characterizes some of Drummond's early love lyrics such as ‘Toada do Amor’ with its jocular tone, the prurient sentiments of ‘Esperteza’, the unabashed sensuality of ‘Iniciação Amorosa’ and the wild statements of ‘Quero Me Casar’, there is already a note of caution lurking amidst the revelry which condemns the perversity of those who deliberately prostitute love:

Os que amem sem amor
não terão o reino dos céus.

“Epigrama para Emilio Moura”

Moments of uncertainty can also be detected amidst the absurd lyrics of Brejo das Almas, deploring the frustrations of unrequited love, inviting readers to be “docemente pornográficos”, confiding the unsatisfactory nature of “o amor no escuro:” or launching accusations at the wiles of women: ‘Enquanto as mulheres cocoricam / os homens engolem veneno’—destructive temptresses ever ready to dance ‘um samba bravo, violento’ over the tombs of their unhappy victims.

Seeds of doubt are to be found amidst the zany, arbitrary rhythms, the self-conscious puns and word play, “Desiludido ainda me iludo”, in the self parody of the poet who confides “faço este verso perverso / inútil, capenga e lúbrico”, and feels hopelessly out of step in his desire “de practicar libidinagens, de ser infeliz e rezar”, and it soon becomes clear that this frenetic adolescent phase is an essential preliminary to the more introspective moods ahead. As the poet reminds his readers: “Amor è bicho instruído” and its tentacles extend to every corner of Drummond's native Minas Gerais. Also inevitable are the “perdido caminho” and “perdida estrêla” en route to a clearer understanding of innocence and grace. Confronted with love's reversals, the poet adopts an attitude of stoicism: “não se enforque nem se disperse em mil análises proustianas, meu filho.”

Caught up in the turmoil of adolescent emotions, in carnival revelry and an atmosphere of orgy and sexual licence, solitude is momentarily forgotten:

Deus me abandonou
no meio do rio.
Estou me afogando
peixes sulfúreos
ondas de éter
curvas curvas curvas
bandeiras de préstitos
pneus silenciosos
grandes abraços largos espaços
eternamente.

Drummond prescribes a natural remedy for human malaise. But this Walpurgis night should also be seen as an essential preliminary stage to any process of spiritual growth. In carnal excess, man ironically rediscovers his own soul.

With the poems of Sentimento do Mundo (1935-1940), Drummond does not entirely abandon this idiosyncratic mock-serious attitude to affairs of the heart but the physical aspect of love is gradually supplanted by the wider and more urgent question of human solidarity as the threats of World War gather momentum. The need to communicate with other men, to identify with their fears and hopes, and to unite with their struggle for human dignity and freedom constitutes a universal crisis which affects the entire human race. “O amor … a carne … a vida … os beijos … o mundo …” have suddenly lost all meaning. Love has been silenced by universal fear and the poet is no longer entitled to indulge his private inclinations:

provisoriamente não cantaremos o amor,
que se refugiou mais abaixo dos subterrâneos.
Cantaremos o medo, que esteriliza os abraços.

“Congresso Internacional do Medo”

The most insidious of all human emotions has momentarily paralysed mankind, eroding all feeling and mutual concern. Romantic effusions ring hollow in this era of wanton destruction, and the confidences of lovers are rudely interrupted in this “mundo enorme e parado”. The poet expresses his regret that in the past his own private world engaged him to the point of ignoring his obligations to society as a whole:

Outrora escutei os najos,
as sonatas, os poemas, as confissões patéticas.
Nunca escutei voz de gente.
Em verdade sou muito pobre.

“Mundo Grande”

—but even at this late hour his emotions can be channelled into a broader humanitarian concern, his heart surging between “o amor e o fogo”, as the struggle continues on behalf of more acceptable values once the shadows of greed and tyranny have passed.

This wider concept of love in terms of communion and mutual support makes far greater demands on the poet than any private trauma. His disturbing awareness that there is “oitenta por cento de ferro nas almas” at once dispels any idea of a poet going through a superficial phase of social and political commitment. The anonymous countenance of mankind is like that of the frigid, unyielding princess in “Madrigal Lúgubre” and the poet is faced with the daunting task of melting her heart:

Tão completo desprezo se transmudará em tanto amor

No one is ever likely to question the sincerity of the poet's political and social preoccupations as expressed in Sentimento do Mundo, yet in my view these otherwise admirable poems do not present Drummond in his most natural vein. By temperament, Drummond excels in poems of intimacy and restraint. The mood to which he best responds is clearly stated in his “Ode No Cinqüentenário do Poeta Brasileiro” where he defines human solidarity as a union achieved in tranquillity of spirit rather than in a loud voice or frenzied gesture. This is the more subtle form of communion and participation inspired by his spiritual mentor Manuel Bandeira, a poet of an earlier generation whose ‘violenta ternura’ and ‘gravidade simples’ were quickly assimilated by Drummond:

Debruço-me em teus poemas
e neles percebo as ilhas
em que nem tu nem nos habitamos
(ou jamais habitaremos)
e nessas ilhas me banho
num sol que não é dos trópicos,
numa água que não é das fontes
mas que ambos refletem a imagem
de um mundo amoroso e patético.
.....É difícil de explicar
esse sofrimento seco,
sem qualquer lágrima de amor,
sentimento de homens juntos,
que se comunicam sem gesto
e sem palavras se invadem,
se aproximam, se compreendem
e se calam sem orgulho.

Bandeira's ‘mundo amoroso e patético’ is fully captured by Drummond, not so much in his troubled descriptions of a world convulsed by war and self-interest as in the confidences of his lições da infância, in the domestic drama of “Caso do Vestido”, and in the wry musings of José where “a graça, a eternidade, o amor caem, são plumas.” (“Tristeza no Céu”). Bandeira's “pungente amor” touches Drummond, too, when he confides his fear that what the world carelessly calls love might turn out in the end to be nothing better than “meação … pecúlio … esmola”.

True love, whatever its manifestations, exacts its own price. It is ever beckoning yet ever elusive, with all the appearances of a palliative but infinitely more ambivalent as one looks closer: “este querer consolar sem muita convicção … / mas o amor car (o, a) colega este não consola nunca de núncaras” (“Amar-Amaro”).

Time and experience have made the poet wiser and less vulnerable and in mature reflection he comes to the reassuring conclusion that even just to dream of love and gather its echoes is preferable to its complete extinction.

The unpredictable nature of love's inconsistencies persists throughout Drummond's most recent books of verse, namely Menino Antigo, As Impurezas do Branco and Esqueçer Para Lembrar, but there is ample evidence of growing equanimity in calculating what can be salvaged: “o perdedor que ganha de seu medo” (“Inimigo”). The poet's humour, too, acquires a new terseness of expression, notably in “A Impossível Comunhão” where he protests:

Ai Deus, que duro
usando o corpo
salvar a alma.

The life-long battle between soul and senses cannot be avoided but life, with all its emotional upheavals, continues to be worthwhile “renascida em flor e formiga” if sustained by a sincere act of love:

E como se salva
a uma só palavra
desde o nascimento:
amor, vidamor!

The same positive note prevails in As Impurezas do Branco where love is equated with: “o ganho não previsto”. And if our destiny is to emulate Christ's sufferings and a solitude which Drummond has no hesitation in defining as ‘incompáravel’ as the love He showed for mankind, this is counter-balanced by man's inherited capacity for love even in the deepest tristeza.

Love is undoubtedly the word most frequently invoked by the poet throughout his numerous collections of verse and as a theme it assumes a new dimension in his most recent book A Paixão Medida (1980) where the greatest of all human experiences is examined further with extraordinary vigour and imagination. Drummond achieves the same telling combination of vision and reflection in this latest collection. He tackles familiar questions about the nature of man's emotional existence from new angles, and with fresh points of emphasis. A second birth brings unexpected insights into the absurd pattern of human responses to love:

Eis que um segundo nascimento
não adivinhado, sem anúncio,
resgata o sofrimento do primeiro,
e o tempo se redoura.
Amor, este o seu nome.
Amor, a descoberta
de sentido no absurdo de existir.

“Nascer de Novo”

Love and its physical expression achieve “a negação de tempo e de tristeza” and love's “melodia interna” helps us to withstand the miseries and disappointments of all human relationships. Love and an emotional state akin to madness become indistinguishable in “Confronto”, while in the much more earthy “A Festa do Mangue”, uninhibited copulation brings a spontaneous form of understanding:

                                                            a rua
é um país compreensivo
em que se procura o amor
sem escritura e padrinhos.

Every physical manifestation of love affirms our identity as individual human beings.

Cada corpo é uma escrita diferente

(“Ante Um Nu De Bianco”)

… Todo ser humano é um estranho impar

(“Igual-Desigual”)

—in love's vast arena despite the superficial impression of “amores, iguais iguais iguais”. The flowers and plants in the poet's highly personal “Declaração de Amor” symbolize nature's manifestations of life and death and culminate in “Violeta … Amor—mais que—perfeito. Minha urze. Meu cravo—pessoal—de defunto. Minha corola sem cor e nome no chão de minha morte.” Each individual species in this garden presents a different form and perfume, its riches and variety providing the perfect image of the human spectrum of amorous experience. And poetry, not to be outdone, serves the same function in the book's title poem:

Trocaica te amei, com ternura dáctila
e gesto espondeu.
Teus iambos aos meus com força entrelacei.
Em dia alemânico, o instinto rapálico
rompeu leonino,
a porta pentâmetra.
Gemido trilongo entre breves murmúrios.
E que mais, e que mais, no crepuscule ecóico,
senão a quebrada lembrança
de latina, de grega, inumerável delicia?

“A Paixão Medida”

Each moment of emotional experience invokes its own harmony. A wide range of metrical forms has helped the poet to capture the stages of his emotional development from innocence to maturity:

Amor é o que se aprende no limite,
depois de se arquivar toda ciência
herdada, ouvida. Amor começa tarde.

Once released from the ‘cofre maternal, sombrio e cálido’ the child takes its place in the ‘rotacação universal’, surviving the seasons and becoming increasingly more aware that love is ever old and ever new, infinite in its moods and forms, sublime even when adulterated in the shabby brothels of the festive Mangue. For Drummond, the naked body locked in sexual embrace preserves intact the secrets of an individual soul reaching out for the highest form of union and self-expression: “proprietário de um segredo, um sentido—labirinto particular, alheio ao ser precário.” The outward grace and inner light of these spontaneous rituals as extolled by Drummond find a similar response in the third stanza of Jorge de Sena's “Arte de Amar”:

Que gestos há mais belos que os do sexo?
Que corpo belo é menos belo em movimento?
E que mover-se um corpo no de um outro o amplexo
não é dos corpos o mais puro intento?

In man's constant pursuit of consolation and happiness, no matter his background or personal circumstances, love finally triumphs as the “alta riqueza” for love, in final analysis, is man's only effective weapon against inner solitude “mesmo quando multidão”.

In conclusion, the numerous poems dealing with the theme of love do not merely trace out a complete cycle of emotional experience but also the evolution of Drummond's multiple techniques and styles. These extend from the jaunty rhythms and witty epigrams of Alguma Poesia to the solemn meditations of Sentimento do Mundo; from the dense metaphors of Claro Enigma to the relaxed occasional verses of the consecrated poet; from the compact lyricism of Menino antigo to the lively inventions of A Paixão Medida—embracing sonnets, prose poems, and arbitrary combinations of shorter and longer metres. Truth and wonder are the lasting hallmarks of this human and humane poetry. With energy and skill Drummond probes: “o nervo exposto dos problemas” from which there is no escape while helping us to pursue “o mítico amor” to which every human being instinctively aspires with varying degrees of awareness.