// // João Cabral de Melo Neto was a Brazilian poet, writer, and diplomat. Known as the “engineer of poetry,“ he was part of the third generation of Brazilian modernism: the Generation of 45. Although his affection for the Parnassianism, Melo Neto was one of the predecessors of Surrealism in Brazil, concerned about the life and suffering of Brazilian people, especially those from the northeastern region, where he grew up, such as the difficult lives of farm workers trying to survive in dry lands, while they hope to have a land of their own before death comes. JCMN is considered the most important poet of the post-war generation, and his “The Death and Life of a Severino” (Morte e Vida Severina) poem is agreed to be one of the greatest literary works from Brazil, in which the author portrayed the saga of a northeastern migrant who left the Sertão (dry lands) towards the southern cities in Brazil in pursuit of a better life.

Daily Space (Espaço Jornal in Portuguese) addresses the monotony of man being consumed by work, without enjoying his life. Melo Neto evokes images in his word choices in this poem. The orange represents the sun, which goes down through the day while the shadow eats the orange fruit, until sunset, spreading its color in the reflections of the river and the sea. In the third stanza, the poet portrays a life of simple ambitions, having a partner and food, but fulfilled only in the world of dreams. In the last stanza, the author dialogues with dying in vain, a recurrent theme in his poems.

For João Cabral de Melo Neto, every word has weight, is a stone, must be valid, and must be spoken in order to have meaning. Therefore, four stanzas beginning with the statement “It is mineral” point to the image that, once in written form, everything becomes concrete. Paper is concrete, “flowers, plants, fruits, animals”, that is, living forms that will die, but that are preserved and last for the afterlife when put into a “state of word”. And even abstractions, such as “horizon, name” also gain weight when converted into words.

Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. Princeton Univ. Press, 2001.

Miranda, A. (n.d.). João Cabral de Melo Neto. Antônio Miranda. Retrieved March 26, 2025, from http://www.antoniomiranda.com.br/poesia_ingles/joao_cabral_de_melo_neto.html

Phillips, Adam. “Dead or Alive.” Raritan, vol. 42, no. 4, 2023, pp. 1–14.

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