Provincializing World Geography: Land and Letters in Euclides da Cunha’s Os sertões

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Aarti S. Madan

Romance Notes, Volume 52, Number 2, 2012, pp. 113-121 (Article)

P bl h d b Th D p rt nt f R n L n nd L t r t r ,Th n v r t f N rth r l n t h p l H llDOI: 10.1353/rmc.2012.0025

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PROVINCIALIZING WORLD GEOGRAPHY:LAND AND LETTERS IN EUCLIDES DA

CUNHA’S OS SERTÕES

AARTI S. MADAN

The case, as we have already seen, is a good deal morecomplex and interesting than that. It involves a set of factswith which those somnambulists who go about immersed inthe dream of imperialist restoration have nothing to do. Anignorance of such facts leads to disasters worse than thewiping out of these three expeditions. It shows that we our-selves are but little in advance of our rude and backward fel-low-countrymen. The latter, at least, were logical. Isolatedin space and time, the jagunço, being an ethnic anachro-nism, could do only what he did do – that is, combat, andcombat in a terrible fashion, the nation which, after havingcast him off for three centuries almost, suddenly sought toraise him to our own state of enlightenment at the point of abayonet, revealing to him the brilliancy of our civilization inthe blinding flash of cannons.

EUCLIDES DA CUNHA

IN the short span of an epigraph we can unearth the argument ofEuclides da Cunha’s Os Sertões (1902), a multi-genre masterpiece ofsome five hundred pages. As the remarkable Brazilian incarnation of thecivilization/barbarism dialectic, da Cunha’s narrative depicts the conflictbetween the allegedly civilized Republican troops and their fellow coun-trymen, the millenarian Catholic folk community of the Brazilian“sertão.” The writer paints a tragic portrait of his national sphere, whichis divided such that a third of the country is left to wallow in what hedescribes as “centuries-old semidarkness” (Rebellion in the Backlands

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161).1 Perhaps inevitably, this third of Brazil – referred to equally as“sertanejos” or as “jagunços” – unites under the auspices of the enig-matic Antonio Conselheiro in the backlands settlement of Canudos.Here, the events of the bloody account unfold between October 1896and October 1897.

As he details the four government attempts to crush this supposedthreat to the nation, da Cunha weaves together a tale of battles andinsurgencies, of heroes and antiheroes, of climactic ups and downs thatdizzy readers to exhaustion with their repetition. The dramatic seriesboasts a recurring lead actor (Antonio Conselheiro) and setting(Canudos). Da Cunha casts Conselheiro and Canudos to one side, how-ever. His primary focus is neither actor nor setting but rather the veryphysical space of the sertão – in other words, the land. The Brazilianauthor divides the narrative into three sections that allude to a hierarchyof importance; this hierarchy, in turn, points to the central protagonist:first, “The Land,” then, “The Man,” and finally “The Rebellion.”

Da Cunha opts to present first the national landscape and then thenational man. This chronology brings to mind Alexander von Hum-boldt’s 1845 Cosmos, in which the Baron systematically outlines physi-cal geography but concludes his study with a section on man. The simi-larities do not end there, which leads critics – namely Roberto GonzálezEchevarría (1990) and Luiz Costa Lima (1997) – to locate da Cunha’ssource of authorization in the hegemonic discourse of science. I believe,however, that we can expound upon and complicate such readings bymoving from the generality of science to the particularity of geography.Da Cunha, I will illustrate, reproduces Humboldt’s aestheticized geo-graphical discourse, albeit with a Brazilian twist, in order to translate“writing the earth” to “writing the nation.” Like Humboldt – the primor-dial Eurocentric man – da Cunha views America as materia prima. Theproject for the local Eurocentric, however, is to theorize that materia pri-ma from his local Brazilian sphere to the universal. Da Cunha attemptsto localize – that is, nationalize – Humboldt, thereby provincializinguniversal philosophy. This attempt appears explicitly in his commentson Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as well as implicitly in his poetic

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1 For the sake of fluidity, the in-text citations will often come from Samuel Putnam’sEnglish translation of Os Sertões (OS) titled Rebellion in the Backlands (RITB) andincluded in the bibliography.

register. Form and content coalesce in da Cunha to literarily write theBrazilian land, this time from the perspective of a Brazilian. Part of myintent in this paper, then, is to explicate da Cunha’s language insofar asit relates to the land itself. We cannot quite understand his intertwiningof poetry and geography without attention to the corresponding form.Da Cunha, I aim to show, embraces a specific literary language thattransmits his narrative’s political undertones. That formal selectiondemands analysis. What are the politics of his mixed form, of his inter-twining of the poetic and the geographic?

To delve into these politics, we must consider da Cunha’s reading ofHegel. Something interesting in the history of Latin American exception-alism occurs when da Cunha casually slips Hegel into his narrative. Histone is of slight, of correction, contrary to the unapologetic agreementoften seen with regard to the German philosopher. The first correctiveappears early in the narrative under the subsection “A Geographical Cat-egory that Hegel Does Not Mention” (RITB 39). This dry, almostaccusatory heading suggests that despite (or because of) Hegel’s exclu-sion of the sertão from his Philosophy of History, da Cunha not onlydemands but rather enacts its inclusion. In other words, he attempts tomake the excessively local – the remote, ahistorical Brazilian backlands– into something universal. This unique geographical terrain, da Cunhanotes, calls “for a special division in the Hegelian scheme” of antitheses,“one in between the over-fertile valleys and the most arid of the steppes”(RITB 41). Incidentally, none other than Alexander von Humboldt breaksdown this Brazilian geographical nuance, though, as Cunha contends,“This explanation of Humboldt’s, put forth as barely more than a brillianthypothesis, has, however, a deeper significance” (RITB 41).

This very intrigue with, but simultaneous need to rewrite, BaronHumboldt exposes another instance of the Brazilian author’s torn rela-tionship with occidental thinkers, Hegel being the first. That da Cunhaappropriates – indeed, nationalizes – Humboldtian geographical dis-course indicates two contradictory ideas: first, he sees the Baron as asource of authorization, but second, he sees the Baron as a source to berewritten and rectified through a Brazilian lens. And this rectification isprecisely what merits close reading.

Da Cunha’s rewrite begins at the structural level. Recall that likeHumboldt, he organizes his narrative into three parts that are furthersubdivided into synecdochic subsections that function as a microcosm

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of the narrative. One such representative sliver appears within the sec-tion titled “The Land,” a part called “As Caatingas.” The Glossary ofTerms in Samuel Putnam’s English translation describes the caatinga as“scrub-forest land” (RITB 495). Yet, this vague definition need not evenexist when considering da Cunha’s own painstaking effort to describethe flora. As he details the land’s strengths and weaknesses, its resilienceand its obstacles, readers comprehend the binaries dwelling at the coreof his Brazilian reality. As I will demonstrate, da Cunha’s precise dic-tion, halting punctuation, and literary devices lead us through a land-scape of language in which the vicious caatinga, first deprecated for thehorrific repulsion it provokes, becomes something to be admired,respected even, for its ability to surmount inhospitable conditions ofdrought, of flood, of lack.

This transformation evokes da Cunha’s representation of thejagunços; thus the caatinga – unique to Brazil, we learn – becomessomething of a metaphor for the human species particular to the sertão.In this Darwinian throwback, da Cunha employs metaphor to coalesceland with society. The mediating code between these otherwise incon-gruent spheres is national consolidation. The narrative pursues compre-hension of the national sphere via a national literature, one in which thesame aesthetic material nourishes both man and land. Form (poetry) andcontent (geography) join to write the Brazilian nation, to explore itsnuances, to reveal its dichotomies.

Abiding by da Cunha’s tendency toward threes, I have chosen threeparagraphs that allow me to illustrate my thesis – this is to say, that theauthor of Os Sertões rectifies Humboldtian geographical discourse inorder to re-appropriate and nationalize the Brazilian lands and therebytranslate “writing the earth” to “writing the nation.” The selected sec-tions are among the most poetic in Os Sertões, which, to my mind, typi-cally end in ellipses; Putnam fails to replicate this curiosity in his Eng-lish translation. In my reading, however, the ellipses further enhance thenever-ending monstrosity of the Brazilian sertão, the overwhelmingvastness of the flora that takes over it, and the burdening awareness thatno language will ever suffice to fully explain this enigmatic land. Eachof these qualities pervades the representative fragments, the first ofwhich appears at the start of “As Caatingas.” It reads:

Ao passo que a caatinga o afoga; abrevia-lhe o olhar; agride-o e estonteia-o; enlaça-ona trama espinescente e não o atrai; repulsa-o com as folhas urticantes, com o espinho,

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com os gravetos estalados em lanças; e desdobra-se-lhe na frente léguas e léguas,imutável no aspecto desolado: árvores sem folhas, de galhos estorcidos e secos, revoltos,entrecruzados, apontando rijamente no espaço ou estirando-se flexuosos pelo solo, lem-brando um bracejar imenso, de tortura, da flora agonizante... (OS 116, emphases mine).2

Da Cunha immediately personifies the land, thereby integrating it intothe social sphere and transforming it into man’s equal. This equality res-onates with distinct tones as the narrative advances, for the caatingaviciously attacks the Republican troops assigned to fight in the sertão. Inthis passage, nonetheless, the man is not a soldier but rather a lone trav-eler navigating the harsh Brazilian terrain. As the caatinga stifles thetraveler, hinders his sight, strikes and stuns him, enmeshes and repulseshim, the land displays its immense power. The land enters all relation-ships armed – the caatinga is its constant companion, its weapon, with“twigs sharp as lances.” This allusion to war is the first of many.

Part and parcel of the land’s power is its enormity. Long and wind-ing, the two-sentence paragraph mimics the endless quality of this ter-rain, as do the polysyllabic words ending the passage: “apontando rija-mente,” “estirando-se flexuosos,” “lembrando um bracejar imenso.” Thecaatinga’s power additionally intensifies because of the narrative’srhythm. Da Cunha’s short clauses consisting of little more than a verband direct object pronoun punch readers before drawing back with asemi-colon; this pattern includes five semi-colons in the first lines. Thehalting punctuation and the series of prepositional clauses create a stac-cato that traps readers in the same way as the caatinga. Similarly, daCunha demonstrates his mastery of repetition with the anaphoric “com.”Just as the land is unchanging (“imutável”), so too is his language. Thatis, he repeats words (“léguas e léguas”) and sounds (the alliterated/assonated “a”; the alliterated “es”; the end-rhyme with the gerund “-ando” and the ending “-os”) to heighten the sense of monotony that hethen translates to melancholy through a pain-filled diction: “desolado,”“secos, revoltos, entrecruzados,” “tortura,” “agonizante.” The language

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2 “The caatinga, on the other hand, stifles him; it cuts short his view, strikes him inthe face, so to speak, and stuns him, enmeshes him in its spiny woof, and holds out nocompensating attractions. It repulses him with its thorns and prickly leaves, its twigssharp as lances; and it stretches out in front of him, for mile on mile, unchanging in itsdesolate aspect of leafless trees, of dried and twisted boughs, a turbulent maze of vegeta-tion standing rigidly in space or spreading out sinuously along the ground, representing,as it would seem, the agonized struggles of a tortured, writhing flora” (RITB 30).

also indicates that the land is unnatural, replete with leafless treesaccompanied by “dried and twisted boughs.” Such is the caatinga’s lackof normalcy that Humboldt, we discover some paragraphs later, fails toinclude one of its plants – the canudos-de-pito – in his chart of Braziliansocial plants. This exclusion comes to be significant when thinking ofthe caatinga as a metaphor for the jagunço, which I will explicate in amoment.

Da Cunha’s word choice repels readers through hard consonants andthe resultant cacophony: indeed, “espinescente,” “urticante,” “espinho,”and “estorcido” are each spiny, thorny, prickly, and twisted words. Yet,simultaneously, da Cunha’s language beckons us, intrigues us, demandsthat we read and therefore “see” this Brazilian landscape that he textual-ly paints. Poetic language employed to depict the negative, violent, andabhorrent suggests an intrinsic respect for said negativity: if the caatingaand the jagunço are one and the same, does da Cunha in fact respect theprimitive prowess of the Brazilian land and man?

In the first paragraph, da Cunha’s respect for the caatinga’s sublimebeauty only bubbles to the surface by means of the poetic devices. In thesecond paragraph, however, this respect renders itself visible immedi-ately:

Ora quando, ao revés das anteriores, as espécies não se mostram tão bem armadas para areação vitoriosa, observam-se dispositivos porventura mais interessantes: unem-se, inti-mamente abraçadas, transmudando-se em plantas sociais. Não podendo revidar isoladas,disciplinam-se, congregam-se, arregimentam-se. São deste número todas as cesalpinase as catingueiras, constituindo, nos trechos em que aparecem, sessenta por cento dascaatingas; os alecrins-dos-tabuleiros, e os canudos-de-pito, heliotrópicos arbustivos decaule oco, pintalgado de branco e flores em espigas, destinados a emprestar o nome aomais lendário dos vilarejos... (OS 121, emphases mine).3

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3 “When, contrary to the cases mentioned, the species are perhaps not well equippedfor a victorious reaction, arrangements which are, perhaps, still more interesting maythen be observed. In this case, the plants united in an intimate embrace, being trans-formed into social growths. Not being able to weather it out in isolation, they disciplinethemselves, become gregarious and regimented. To this group belong all the Caesalpiniaand the catingueiras, constituting in those places where they appear 60 per cent of thedesert flora; and then they are the tableland evergreens and the pipe reeds, shrubby, hol-low-stemmed heliotropes, streaked with white and with flowers that grow in spiked clus-ters, the latter species being destined to give its name to the most legendary of villages”(RITB 33).

Upon explaining that certain species of the caatinga are not suited forthe harsh terrain, da Cunha, whose tenor has now become one of attrac-tion as opposed to aversion, indicates that these plants neverthelessovercome their obstacles. They do so by uniting in what amounts tobattle formation. In the several paragraphs separating the first two that Ihave chosen, da Cunha speaks of “the struggle for life,” “the enemy,”“combat,” and “battle.” The Darwinian language has now transformedinto one of war. The various species of the caatinga, now personifiedas soldiers – as jagunços – find themselves not “well equipped for avictorious reaction” (RITB 33). As such, they appropriate the force ofthe collective – an unnatural quality – to survive: they are united, “theydiscipline themselves, become gregarious and regimented” (RITB 33).Da Cunha transposes discipline and regiment, words of war, onto thecontext of the caatinga; this implicit metaphor alludes to the land’s con-stant struggle. Furthermore, the repetition of the aforementioned verbsin close succession and the lack of conjunctions enhances the sense ofunification. The species must become “social plants” – they must disre-gard the individual and instead focus on the whole – in order to sur-vive.

That one of these species – the canudos-de-pito – lends its name tothe Canudos settlement reveals a rather Barthesian attempt to propel thenarrative from question to answer, to advance the progression of the textvia a lexia that might well be in the hermeneutic code. Da Cunha allowsus an initial glimpse of his enigma, of his connection between land andman, between the canudos-de-pito and the jagunços of Canudos. As hepersonifies the caatinga and bestows upon it the tacit qualities of a war-rior, da Cunha suggests that the canudos-de-pito is a metaphor for thejagunço. Despite their initial grotesqueness – in other words, their repel-lant barbarism – they merit commendation for their civilized ability toproblem solve, to surmount obstacles in dire contexts. Both flora andfauna must embrace the mantra of power by numbers, both most uniteand become disciplined, both must create a network maybe unnaturalbut nevertheless indispensable to survival.

This network entangles readers in the third paragraph that I haveselected. Da Cunha continues his description of the canudos-de-pito andnotes that they do not appear on Humboldt’s table of Brazilian socialplants:

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Não estão no quadro das plantas sociais brasileiras, de Humboldt, e é possível que asprimeiras vicejem, noutros climas, isoladas. Ali se associam. E, estreitamente solidáriasas suas raízes, no subsolo, em apertada trama, retêm as águas, retêm as terras que sedesagregam, e formam, ao cabo, num longo esforço, o solo arável em que nascem, ven-cendo, pela capilaridade do inextricável tecido de radicular enredadas em malhasnumerosas, a sucção insaciável dos estratos e das areias. E vivem. Vivem é o termo –porque há, no fato, um traço superior à passividade da evolução vegetativa... (OS 122,emphases mine).4

This exclusion limits both their access and exposure to world geography– in other words, this Brazilian social plant fails to enter the realm of theuniversal (Humboldt) and is subsequently limited to the local (da Cun-ha). Might this not be an extended metaphor for the uniquely Brazilianman, the jagunço? In the local context, both man and land must behavein ways foreign to their nature: isolated and individualistic in otherclimes, “here they are distinctly social” (RITB 33). The four-line sentencefollowing this declaration exposes a language of solidarity and interac-tion. The series of twelve commas acts like the netting that connects theroots of clauses, while the sibilance lends to the suctioning and workingsounds produced by the “numerous meshes.” The repetition of “retêm”contributes to the rhythm of what sounds much like a chain gang work-ing together to bring in the water, bring in the soil. And, finally, a largepart of the diction – “nascem, vencendo, pela capilaridade do inextricáveltecido” – personifies the plants with bodies and systems that are distinct-ly human. As if to cement in readers his belief in the canudos-de-pito’sperseverance, da Cunha follows this long, intricately constructed, net-like sentence with the punchiest of declarations, one designed, in effect,for the sake of contrast: “E vivem” – “And they do live.”

The canudos-de-pito lives, da Cunha informs us, “because there is,as a matter of fact, a higher significance to be discerned in the passivityexhibited by the evolved form of vegetable life” (RITB 33). If his repre-

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4 “These are not to be found in Humboldt’s table of Brazilian social plants, and it ispossible that the first named also grow, isolated, in other climates; but here they are dis-tinctly social. Their roots, tightly interlaced beneath the ground, constitute a net to catchthe waters and the crumbling earth, and, as a result of a prolonged effort, they finallyform the fertile soil from which they spring, overcoming, through the capillarity of theirinextricable tissues, with their numerous meshes, the insatiable suction of the strata andthe strands. And they do live. “Live” is the word – for there is, as a matter of fact, a high-er significance to be discerned in the passivity exhibited by the evolved form of veg-etable life” (RITB 33).

sentation of the plant functions as an extended metaphor for thejagunço, then passive acceptance undoubtedly flounders in the face ofactive resistance and unification, the defining quality, Cunha seems tosuggest, of Brazilian nationality. The author presents the caatinga as theresounding exemplification of Brazilian strength and camaraderie, anexample – lest we forget – denied entry into Humboldt’s Europeancharts. By metaphorically aligning the canundos-de-pito with the peopleof its region, da Cunha elevates those Brazilian citizens to the very levelof the land of which he stands in awe, thereby revealing what he acutelydescribes as a “higher significance to be discerned” (RITB 33).

WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

WORKS CITED

Costa Lima, Luis. Terra Ignota: A construcão de Os Sertões. Rio de Janeiro: CivilizacãoBrasileira, 1997.

Cunha, Euclides da. Os Sertões: campanha de Caundos. São Paulo: Imprensa Oficial doEstado, 2001 [1902].

––––––. Os Sertões. Trans. Samuel Putnam. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1944.González Echevarría, Roberto. Myth and Archive. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.

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