São Paulo: The Quintessential, Uninhibited Megalopolis as seen by Blaise Cendrars in the 1920s

  • Nicolau Sevcenko
Chapter

Abstract

Why did Blaise Cendrars decide to go to São Paulo? He did not provide us with a straight answer to that question. His decision, however, was surprising enough to justify the question. For when he first came to São Paulo, in 1924, he was already reputed as the most innovative and important of all the modernist poets. In fact it was he who, together with Guillaume Apollinaire, first shaped modernist poetry in 1913. More than that it was Cendrars’ book Les Pâques à New York, read by Apollinaire in its manuscript, which influenced the writing of ‘Zone’ and other authentic modernist poems of Apollinaire’s book of 1913, Alcools, so letting him share with Cendrars the role of being a founding father of the so-called ‘cubist poetry’.1

Keywords

Real Estate Market Rule Elite Coffee Farmer Coffee Price Poor Village 
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Notes

  1. 1.
    M. Chefdor, Blaise Cendrars (Boston: Twayne, 1980) pp. 37–75. J. Bochner, Blaise Cendrars: Discovery and Re-creation (Toronto: University Press, 1978) pp. 38–55. M. Poupon, ‘Apollinaire et Cendrars’, Archives des Lettres Modernes, 103 (1969).Google Scholar
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    P. Morand, ‘Préface’, in Blaise Cendrars, Du Monde entier, poésies complètes, 1912–1924 (Paris: Gallimard, 1967) p. 12.Google Scholar
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    For the quotations from Dos Passos, Buhler and Henry Miller see M. Chefdor, op. cit., pp. 16, 23–4; for Rilke’s see J. Bochner, op. cit., p. 7.Google Scholar
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    J. Bochner, op. cit., p. 7.Google Scholar
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    Blaise Cendrars, Etc …, etc … (um livro 100% brasileiro) (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1976). This book is a collection of extracts from Blaise Cendrars, Oeuvres Complètes (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1960–5) 8 volumes.Google Scholar
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    M. Chefdor, op. cit., pp. 17–22. J.Buhler, Blaise Cendrars, homme libre, poète au cœur du monde (Bienne: Panorama, 1960) pp. 22–3.Google Scholar
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    Ibid., pp. 110–16. On Paulo Prado’s activities and his family’s businesses, D. E. Levi, A Famflia Prado (São Paulo: Cultura 70, 1977).Google Scholar
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    R. Morse, Pormação Històrica de São Paulo, de communidade a metrópole (São Paulo: Difel, 1970) is the best survey of the history of São Paulo. The geographic point of view is best provided by A. de Azevedo (ed.), A Cidade de São Paulo (São Paulo: C.E.N., 1958) 3 volumes.Google Scholar
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    As is expressed in the sub-title of R. Morse’s book, op. cit.Google Scholar
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    Figures are taken from P. Petrone, ‘São Paulo no século XX’, in A. de Azevedo, op. cit., p. 125; J. R. de Araújo Filho, ‘A População Paulistana’, in ibid., pp. 175–9; F. Villaça, A Estrutura Territorial da Metrópole Sul-Brasileira (São Paulo: Ph.D., Dept. of Geography, Universidade de São Paulo, 1978) p. 38; C. Prado Jr., A Evolução Política do Brazil e Outros Estudos, 10th edn (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1977) p. 122.Google Scholar
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    The exact amount of urban areas under the control of this company was 37 per cent, according to M. C. P. de Souza, O Capital Imobiliário e a Produção do Espaço Urbano, o caso da Companhia City (São Paulo: M’A at the FGV, 1988) p. 65.Google Scholar
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    ‘Queixas e Reclamações’, in O Estado de São Paulo, 15 June 1919, p. 5.Google Scholar
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    ‘Urn Raid Rio-São Paulo’, in O Estado de São Paulo, 27 April 1919, p. 5; ‘A Aviação no Brazil’, in ibid., 3 May 1919, p. 4; ‘Acrobacias Aéreas’ in ibid., p. 3.Google Scholar
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    ‘Saint-Paul’ in J. Buhler, op. cit., pp. 63–4.Google Scholar

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© Theo Barker and Anthony Sutcliffe 1993

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  • Nicolau Sevcenko

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