segunda-feira, 8 de outubro de 2012

A queda de Icaro

Há alguns dias atrás, tive que apresentar um trabalho de literatura sobre o poema "Musee des beaux arts" de William Auden, que é um poema baseado no quadro acima, "A queda de Icaro", do pintor holandes (ou belga) Pieter Bruegel. Após pesquisar, achei muito interessante o sentimento que ambos passam, então resolvi compartilhá-los aqui.

Uma linda paisagem bucólica, um navio, crianças brincando, um pastor, um homem do campo arando a terra...cores fortes, alegres...mas...e o homem se afogando no mar? alguém percebeu?alguém se importou?
O homem em questão é Icaro, principal personagem de um mito grego que fala basicamente sobre equilibrio, ambição e imprudência (pesquise a estória, é interessante!). Para resumir, Icaro foi ambicioso, "sonhou alto" e terminou morrendo afogado.
E aí, eu te pergunto novamente: alguém se importou? Mas é um "herói" grego, será que ele não mereceria a atenção que os mitos sempre dão aos seus heróis?
Bem, na pintura de bruegel, não. Não interessa quem ele é, ninguém se importa. Por mais que uma tragedia (grega) esteja acontecendo, todos têm seus afazeres, pois a vida continua e ninguém se importa com o sofrimento alheio.

Interessante como Bruegel conseguiu captar esse comportamento humano em pleno século 16...pelo jeito, as pessoas sempre foram e sempre serão assim...

Para fechar, o poema:

Auden foi à Bruxelas e observou o quadro citado no Museu de Belas artes. Eis o que ele escreveu:


About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.  




mais: http://www.humanarte.net/brueghel-icarus.pdf

Verbo Ser - Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Que vai ser quando crescer?
Vivem perguntando em redor. Que é ser?
É ter um corpo, um jeito, um nome?
Tenho os três. E sou?
Tenho de mudar quando crescer?
Usar outro nome, corpo e jeito?
Ou a gente só principia a ser quando cresce?
É terrível, ser? Dói? É bom? É triste?
Ser; pronunciado tão depressa, e cabe tantas coisas?
Repito: Ser, Ser, Ser. Er. R.
Que vou ser quando crescer?
Sou obrigado a? Posso escolher?
Não dá para entender. Não vou ser.
Vou crescer assim mesmo.
Sem ser Esquecer.

Once upon a time - Gabriel Okara

Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.
There was a time indeed
they used to shake hands with their hearts:
but that’s gone, son.
Now they shake hands without hearts
while their left hands search
my empty pockets.
‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:
they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
there will be no thrice-
for then I find doors shut on me.
So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – homeface,
officeface, streetface, hostface,
cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.
And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.
But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!
So show me, son,
how to laugh; show me how
I used to laugh and smile
once upon a time when I was like you.

segunda-feira, 1 de outubro de 2012

The Frog Prince - Stevie Smith


I am a frog
I live under a spell
I live at the bottom
Of a green well

And here I must wait
Until a maiden places me
On her royal pillow
And kisses me
In her father’s palace

The story is familiar
Everybody knows it well
But do other enchanted people feel as nervous
As I do? The stories do not tell,

As if they will be happier
When the changes come
As already they are fairly happy
In a frog’s doom?

I have been a frog now
For a hundred years
And in all this time
I have not shed many tears,

I am happy, I like the life,
Can swim for many a mile
(When I have hopped to the river)
And am for ever agile.

And the quietness,
Yes, I like to be quiet
I am habituated
To a quiet life,

But always when I think these thoughts
As I sit in my well
Another thought comes to me and says:
It is part of the spell

To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment

Says, It will be heavenly
To be se free,
Cries Heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

Come then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly,
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people
Can be heavenly.