Traveling in Haroldo de
Campos's Galáxias:
A Guide and Notes for the
Reader
Homage to the presence of Haroldo de Campos
at Yale
and other North-American universities,
1968-1999
Long
Distance Calls by Cellular Prose
Haroldo de Campos
remained full of projects and of the creative energy, always so
positive and exuberant as was his characteristic, up until his last
moments. When in hospital, in August 2003,
he proposed to his brother Augusto a joint translation of Dante’s
Divine Comedy, with the striking suggestion that they could do it by
telephone. That would have been another
successful encounter of technology with philology for Haroldo, the
synthesis of a syncretic and a temporal vision of literature in its
most creative moments, across time, with the vanguardist techniques of
our own age. That galactic-technical
vision was always Haroldo’s specialty, from the “panaroma” of Finnegans Wake to the “transhelenization” of the Iliad, the final monument of his long literary career. This is the same Haroldo of the
"Scribblevaganza," the title he gave to a conference that he and I
organized at the
The voyage is also
philological, another characteristic of Haroldo, who always worked in
close contact with many different languages and literatures --
Japanese, German, English-American, French, Italian, Spanish, Spanish
American, Greek, Hebrew – applying his techniques of transcreation to
the greatest philological challenges: pois um livro é
viagem (frag. 8). Deeply rooted in
From the Odyssey to
One of the essential
references for a reading of Galáxias in the context of
the historical vanguards is Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922).
The Joycean novel narrates the live of
Possessing a structure
reminiscent of Ulysses, the Galáxias accompany the
narrator's voyage, in a subconscious open monologue, through multiple
cities in an allegory of human destiny, in his mythical search for
esthetic emotion and structure (stasis), in a material
world governed by worthlessness and nothingness (kinesis). Traveling through microcosms toward the
macrocosm, following the Joycean expression "all space in a not-shall,"
each fragment of Galáxias returns the reader to a
larger mythical structure, originating not only in the Odyssey
but in the allegorical nature of speech itself, of an occult world
of symbols. By reinventing stories in the fashion of the thousand and
one nights, both enchanting and fatal, the monologue in Galáxias
both affirms and negates, alternately, reproducing an organic rhythm. The hero seems condemned to wander eternally
among the world's cities, waiting for a utopian-esthetic liberation or
for an epiphany or illumination: “…une insinuation épique se résolvant
en une épiphanie.” Galaxies, 1998).
In these wanderings through a purgatory of the real, the
narrator finds a referential unity, parallel to the basic skeleton of
the novel Ulysses, unlocked by Gilbert. To
aid the reading of Galáxias, I propose a schematic
design parallel to the one that Gilbert designed for Ulysses, so that
the reader of Haroldo's greatest work of prose and poetry can better
accompany and understand its themes and profound rhythm.
The initial scheme outlays a sequence of cities and of literary
references that makes up the basic material of the voyage of the
narrator-poet through a world of plural signifiers.
These notes are the result of seminars on the Galáxias
in
Guide to the 50 fragments of Galáxias
TITLE
AREA/SPACE
LITERARY-AESTHETIC REFERENCES
1. e começo aqui
fable
Divine Comedy
2. reza calla y trabaja
Granada
Lorca, António Machado on Lorca
3. multitudinous seas
sea
Pound, Borges, Macbeth.
4. no jornalário
newspaper
Dante, Paradiso
5. mire usted
Córdoba
Arabist
6. augenblick
7. sazamegoto
Prague
Haiku. Bashô, Buson (1716-84)
8. isto não é um livro
9. açafrão
10. ach lass sie quatschen
Germany
Sinagogue
11. amorini
Italy
Pompei
12. um avo de estória
Roman mosaic of
13. esta é uma álealenda
Paris
Artaud
14. ma non dove
15. circuladô de fulô
16. um depois um
17. uma
18. cheiro velho
19.
20. não tiravam o chapéu
21. e brancusi
Stuttgart
Brancusi's egg
22. hier liegt
Cologne
Exposition. Lorca.
23. neckarstrasse
Tübingen
Schiller, Goethe, Sophocles, Hölderlin, Bloch
24. a liberdade
Manhattan
Sapho, Mondrian, Lorca, Vozniessienski,
Sousândrade
25. aquele
26. apsara
Boston
Kenholz painting
27. sob o chapéu
28. ou uma borboleta
29. poeta sem lira
Los Angeles
Ode by Píndaro, Hölderlin, Novalis, Henry Miller,
Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Bashô.
30. pulverulenda
31. o que mais vejo aqui
fable
32. na coroa de arestas
Andalucia
Triptic
33. mármore ístrio
34. calças cor de abóbora
35. principiava a
encadear-se
36. eu sei que este papel
New York
Barbarella.
37. cheiro de urina
38. o ó a palavra ó
Mariana, Minas Gerais
N. S. de Ó
39. circulado de violeta
France
Monet in
40.
41. tudo isto tem que ver
writing
Joyce
42. a criatura de outro
fable
Sanscrit
43. vista dall’interno
44. cadavrescrito
fable
Rabelais
45. mais uma vez
sea
Joyce, polypho
46. esta mulher-livro
paper
Galatea
47. passatempos e
matatempos
fable
Macunaíma and Propp
48. nudez
New York
Circe in
49. a dream that hath no
bottom
Santa Catarina
Volpi, Faustus, Don Juan
50. fecho
encerro
fable
Pasárgada. Sobolos rios. Dante.
Snow White.
A Neo-Baroque Drama:
Reversible mirrors
The 50 fragments of Galáxias can be read in the form of a neo-baroque drama,
controlled by the technique of mirroring and of reversible forms: esta é uma álealenda ler e reler retroler
The main esthetic building blocks of the "galactic" neo-baroque drama can be represented schematically, following the same categories that Gilbert applied to Ulysses: rhythm, technique, scene, and symbol:
RHYTHM
TECHNIQUE
SCENE
SYMBOL
1. e começo aqui
Alternating rhythm
fable,
Divine Comedy
simultaneism
2. reza calla
y trabaja
Allternating textual rhythm
Melopea
1959,
memory/experience;
from Homeric Greek
silence/speech;
Laitn Shakespeare
white/writing;
paradise/anti-paradise;
birth/death
Spanish landscapes.
3. multitudinous
seas
Rhythm: systole, diastole
dimension
memory-reading
in blood,
textual
Homeric sea.
.
sounding, polysonorous sea
history
as movement,
covert memory
into experience
4. no
jornalário
descent into inferno,
satanic
daily life,
Newspaper
the voyage
vision of paradise at the end
5. mire usted
short notes
1959, Córdoba
6. augenblick
group of old women
art works
art gallery
almost
mythic nudity
of paintings
7. sazamegoto
whispering,
Haiku,
seduction
Japonese
woman with poet
literature
in a train carriage
“The rains of Spring!
Dear lady driving with me here
Your whispering!”
8. isto não é
um livro
News in a paper,
ambiguity
between space
and time
S. Francisco churches
and ingenuous
9. açafrão
counterpoint
eroticism
of language,
Vilagiorio
there cannot be
of referents
museum;
reproduced
sale of stolen
watches
10. ach lass
sie quatschen
lace
arabesque
dead,
synagogue,
tragic beauty
manuscript with names
of the dead
11. amorini
tragic-erotic
Priapic
Pompei
evil eye;
daily trivia
licentious
cadavers in the
costumes
museum in the
position in which
they died
12. um avo de
estória
basic speech
mosaic
Roman mosaic
woman-panther:
of
13. esta é
uma álealenda
perfect equilibrium
painting
Paris
French woman with
cafetan,
miscegenation
miniturized
biological
in a box
recolonization
14. ma non
dove
reflexive structures
notes
Ravvisano
headlines of TIME,
that form
“nympholveros…”
a macrostrutcure
Sousândrade, old
poet and the stones
15. circuladô
de fulô
16. um depois
um
moment of inferno
labyrinth
17. uma
reflection
artificial paradises
Karlsbrüke, Prague
Czech film,
on socialism
Congonhas
“once there was a”
cat"
18. cheiro
velho
youth confronting
infernal images
Rome
Cassiano Ricardo
satisfied old person
19.
real/imaginary
confraternization
with the enemy;
dead in the war
bad faith
and young lover
20. não
tiravam o chapéu
stylization
description trouvé
21. e brancusi
others
Parody of
Generals in Paris/ “Famíly",
old ladies of
Mulatta going into
1964 coup
"Tradition &
museum/
hillside, corral of the
Property”
very beautiful
poor
statues
22. hier liegt
train trip
contrast
and
against the jews
23. neckarstrasse
description of night
counterpoint
Tübingen
character with green
eyes;
Hölderlin's
red word
24. a liberdade
always virgin
infernal circle
25. aquele
pop culture
N. York/
Mexican
26. apsara
the false
hyperrealism
Hindu nymph,
woman
making love
on the backseat
of a car
from that time
27. sob o
chapéu
procession
contrast
William Carlos
Williams
28. ou uma
borboleta
haiku
newspaper
S. Paulo
29. poeta sem
lira
obscure poem
from antiquity
30. pulverulenda
Orléon performer
religion and order
31. o que
mais vejo aqui
fable
32. na coroa
de arestas
Triptik
from repor
Andalucia
Death of Guevara,
in a newspaper
Monroe, Kennedy
33. mármore
ístrio
Pound's poetry
paradise
34. calças
cor de abóbora
Dupont Circle
D.C./sad bureaucrats
35. principiava
a encadear-se
metalanguage in the text
Spatial signs
lap; Suleiman's
Persian
calligraphy;
professor giving
lecture on Galdós
36. eu sei
que este papel
happening
placenta of nothing
New York
Instalation,
Plastic balls,
Barbarella in a
happening.
37. cheiro de
urina
semantics
Om
ideas”—Chomsky's
impossible
sentence.
38. o ó a
palavra ó
continuity in writing
Baroque haikai
Mariana, MG
a painting
Sabará museum
book of designs;
gold that took on
the form of a
shell
39. circulado
de violeta
subway announcements
grafitti from hell/
France,
Monet ugly nymphs
in
tunnel / funicular
museum
Paradiso
40.
detours and disasgreements
the page
41. tudo isto
tem que ver
beams of light
grotesque description
writing
toilet paper
between visible
of the writer
in Latin:
and invisible
cacara carta;
nymphs
“après-midi”
42. a
criatura de outro
Sanscrit poem, fable,
writing
Lesbian
Buddist psalm.
43. vista
dall’interno
flight
distortion
wig
44. cadavrescrito
rescue langauge
writing
magic moment
Portuguese fable
45. mais uma
vez
to learn French
sea
Polypho.
46. esta
mulher-livro
reading
Polyphemo-desire
Lingam;
paper, Japanese
painting
.
Yonis
Woman in kimono
(Female sex
Galatea
in Sanscrit)
Word nymph.
Kimono-butterfly
with red wings
47. passatempos
e matatempos
talisman
pseudo-fable
girl who wants
“the who of the,
story, passes all the
tests
48. nudez
Tautodessey
transmorphosis
.
into pigs
Circe,
masseuse in NY;
Venus on the beach.
.49. a dream
that hath no bottom
atheism
teach Latin
Blumenau,
Fritz Müller
anti-racism
to youth;
Desterro,
fish by Müller:
Santa Catarina
“Náuphus”
50. fecho
encerro
reversible,
Textual salvation.
Pasárgada.
self-portrait of
Dante's Paraíso.
Mirror:
writing
“Quasi Glória”
neg./pos. of
liberation
The Galáxias have received growing international critical attention, intensifying since the French translation by Inês Oseki-Dépré in 1998. At the Oxford/Yale symposia in 1999, the novel received critical attention from the grand names of criticism, Marjorie Perloff, Luiz Costa Lima, Wladimir Krysinski and others. Krysinski places Galáxias in the company of the great texts of the twentieth century that refer to all literature, as well as to themselves, beginning with the Cantos of Pound, the Waste Land of Eliot and Joyce's Finnegans Wake. And Perloff compares the technique of Galáxias to works by Gertrude Stein (How to Write, 1931) and to the diaries of John Cage. To travel through its pages is always intriguing; it is to travel through the insistently new, in the meaning that this quality gained from the vanguards of world literature. Galáxias represents the Brazilian contribution to that tradition, Haroldo de Campos's invitation to a referential and self-reflexive literary voyage. The charts presented in this essay should serve the purpose of helping the reader to navigate through the sea of text, through the multiple philological and technical references, and so to answer the phone, picking up the 50 long distance calls from Haroldo, who now continues his earthy and textual journey in galactic space.
Works Cited
Benjamin,
Walter. Ursprung des deutschen trauerspiels,
Cage,
John. A Year from Monday; new lectures and writings.
Eliot,
Thomas Sterns. The
Gilbert,
Stuart. James Joyce’s Ulysses,
Homer. Ilíada. 2 vols.
Haroldo de Campos, trans.
Homer. Odisséia.
Odorico Mendes, trans.
Jackson,
K. David. Haroldo de Campos: A
Dialogue with the Brazilian Concrete Poet.
Jackson, K. David ; Eric Vos, Johanna Drucker, eds. Experimental--Visual--Concrete: Avant-Garde Poetry Since 1960, Amsterdão, Rodopi, 1996
Joyce,
James. Ulysses.
Joyce,
James. Finnegans Wake.
Pound,
Ezra. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. 14th
printing.
Stein,
Gertrude. How to Write.
Verde, Cesário. O Livro de Cesário Verde. Lisboa: Typ. Elzeviriana, 1887.