Afrânio Coutinho's "Nova Crítica"

Author(s): Denis Lynn Heyck

Source: Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer, 1978), pp. 90-104
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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AfranioCoutinho's
NovaCritica
Denis LynnHeyck

Often, the "cultural shock" one experiences on returning home is

greater than that experienced while abroad. Such was the case with
Afrdnio Coutinho, the father of the Brazilian nova crftica. 1 When
he returned to Brazil in 1948 after five intense years of study in
the United States, he was horrified at what he considered the intel-
lectual flaccidity of his native culture-especially the dominance
of dilettantism over serious study and the unprofessional and "im-
moral" conduct of the closed shop of the literary elite. To
Coutinho, the situation required nothing less than a total "clean-
ing house."2 Convinced that the flagrant moral and intellectual
failings he perceived stemmed from the conspicuous absence of a
tradition of critical thought, Coutinho vigorously set about apply-
ing new critical principles as a powerful antidote to the chronic
Brazilian ailment.
It has been said of Marx that he took Hegelian philosophy and
turned it upside down. The same may be said of Coutinho and the
New Criticism. He converted an esthetic doctrine (the New Criti-
cism) intoa reformist tool (the nova crttica). Forthe ultimate
aim of Coutinho's new critical theory was to create a national
critical consciousness, which was intended to reformnot only liter-
ary study but also to provide the basis for a new mode of thought
generally. He believed that the nova critica-with its emphasis on
professionalism, scientific objectivity, and methodological rigor-
alone could free Brazilian intellectual life from the dead hand of
a colonial, underdeveloped mentality characterized by amadorismo,
personalism and improvisation.

I.

In its general contours, Coutinho's theory of literature was

eclectic and practical. He insisted, as did the English critic
I. A. Richards, upon the scientific method, especially in evaluat-
ing a work, but his theory did not possess any of Richards' psy-
chological intricacies. Coutinho frequently cited Eliot on the
importance of literary tradition, particularly the idea of the past
as providing norms for the present. He resembled the North Ameri-
can new critic John Crowe Ransom in his belief that modern criti-
cism began with Aristotle, referring to Aristotle's definition of
the literary work as a self-contained object whose esthetic render-
ing, or "imitation", of life gives us pleasure. Like Allen Tate,
Coutinho believed in the collective rather than the individual

90

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Denis Lynn Heyck 91

nature of the poetic experience.3 But Coutinho's theories most

closely paralleled those of Rene Wellek, especially Wellek's ideas
on the indivisibility of a literary work and on the interdependence
of literary criticism and literary history. Like Wellek, Coutinho
held unity to be a prime esthetic and intellectual value, but be-
cause of his nationalist intent, he insisted on casting it in util-
itarian terms. Practicality also emerged in Coutinho's stress on
the usefulness of theory, particularly its teaching function, be-
cause his concept of literature was to serve as a blueprint for
change. As such, it had to be expressed emphatically and unequivo-
cally. To Coutinho, what molded these assorted features into a
single theory was the sanction of modern science.
A theory of literature logically should precede a method for
studying it. But Coutinho tended to identify theory and method.
Indeed, he identified "theory of literature" with "procedures for
studying it" with "science of literature" with "literary criticism."
Coutinho's inability to make distinctions is a fundamental weakness
in his thought; his confusion of terms, concepts and procedures
continually plagues and frustrates readers of his works. While he
defined literature as a creative autonomous art whose function is
to give pleasure, he did not concern himself much with its nature.
Rather, he devoted himself to the operational principles involved
in appreciating it. He held sacred the same trinity as the new
critics everywhere-the primacy of the text, the unity of the work,
and the autonomy of literature-which for him were theoretical con-
cepts as well as methodological procedures. While Coutinho held
these values dear for all the "right", that is esthetic reasons,
he held them even dearer because of their applicability to the
Brazilian setting. This nationalistic bent made him down the line
more extreme in the advocacy of his views, if not in his views
themselves, than most new critics elsewhere. It also partially ac-
counts for Coutinho's unclear terms and unsatisfactory definitions.
Coutinho equated primacy of the text with sufficiency of the text.
To him adhering to the strict limits of the text would give pre-
dominance to the esthetic nature of a work, its distinctive quali-
ties that made it literature and not something else, and would ac-
count for the timeless appeal of a classic. He was aware that the
historical context of a work varies; therefore, he frequently cited
Eliot's term "suspension of disbelief" as essential to understand-
ing past works which, because they came from other historical
circumstances, may contain alien or offensive historical, political
or moral views.4 But the esthetic substance intrinsic to a work of
art is constant:

. . . estilo, textura e estrutura, elementos formais, sistema

de normas, sistema de sinais e sons, imaglstica, sistema de
metaforas, 'meaning', tematica, simbologia, mitologia, estru-
tura verbal, estrutura narrativa, esquema rltmico, linguagem,
g~nero, etc.. . . .5
et.
genero,

The intrinsic approach to a work was to Coutinho the only one that
allowed the critic ever to experience esthetic pleasure-the sole

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92 Luso-BraziZian Review

end of a literary work-and he referred repeatedly to Aristotle's

Poetics to support his assertion. The philosopher George Santayana
believed that beauty "is pleasure objectified." He said that we
think of it as a quality of the object, but that it is really "an
emotional element, a pleasure of ours. . . ."6 Coutinho and John
Crowe Ransom felt differently. Ransom said that the emotion we
feel does not belong to us, but to the "object towards which we
have it."7 Coutinho agreed: "Valores esteticos sao por sua
natureza valores de objetos."8 Thus Coutinho, like Ransom, stressed
the text for esthetic reasons, but to Coutinho, if not to Ransom,
the study of a work is truly an objective science.
While Coutinho believed fully in the sufficiency of the text for
literary interpretation, he did not do textual analysis himself,
nor did he insist generally that others do it. He simply main-
tained that analysis, based on the work alone, must precede criti-
cal judgment and that it must be done scientifically. Coutinho
regarded what he called Aristotle's "inductive" approach to liter-
ary investigation as scientific and therefore correct. By induc-
tive he meant analytical; that is, observation, isolation,
description and classification of elements, study of the processes
of production and reception of the work, and judgment of its
value.9 But he admitted in this process only what he called strict-
ly verifiable facts. Of course, no approach is purely inductive
or purely deductive, and all possess a priori assumptions about
a work.10 Nevertheless, Coutinho held to his uncluttered notion
of Aristotle's inductive method, and found additional support in
Cleanth Brooks' view that the general and the universal are not
learned through abstract deduction, but are attained through the
concrete and the particular-through inductive analysis of a work."
Coutinho, also like Brooks, felt that the principles of the
autonomy of the text and of its intrinsic, inductive analysis de-
fined the area of criticism but did not dictate a method.12
Though he has often been accused of "metodomania" by his detractors,
Coutinho has always maintained like Hyman, Daiches, Burke and
Blackmur among others, that the ideal approach must be integral.
He would agree with Daiches that in insisting on any single pro-
cedure a critic "runs the risk of letting the true vitality of the
work of literature elude him and his readers."13 The blind follow-
ing of one method was to Coutinho as great a sin as having none at
all.14 He says of the integral method:
Se pudermos, hipoteticamente, fabricar com plastica e metais
leves um crltico literario moderno ideal, seu metodo seria
uma sintese de t6das as tecnicas ou processos usados por
seus colegas de sangue e carne. De t6das as perspectivas
rivais tomaria emprestado elementos para serem usados tanto
quanto posslvel numa slntese que nao falseasse o todo, pro-
curando equilibrar um preconceito, excesso ou especializacao
por outro, de modo que lhe restassem apenas elementos adap-
taveis a seu proposito.15
Coutinho sincerely believed in the literary reasons for stress-
ing the sufficiency of the text, but even dearer to him were his

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Denis Lynn Heyck 93

nationalist reasons. He never saw any incompatibility between the

principle of esthetic pleasure as the sole function of a work and
the non-esthetic uses to which he put this principle. In consid-
ering the work as an object, for example, he began the arduous
process of liberating literature and criticism from the rife per-
sonalism of Brazilian letters. Such personalism focused on the
person of either the author or the critic, and abandoned the fate
of an author to the caprices of the critic, his personal feeling
toward the author, the author's family or political connections,
and many other extraneous and to Coutinho "immoral" considerations.
Treating a work as an object with no outside or personal referrents
would deal a blow to aristocratic Impressionism and begin the demo-
cratization of literature and criticism. Coutinho often used
"professional" to mean "democratic" because he considered the pro-
fession in letters to be nothing less than an open meritocracy of
full-time artists. Thus amadorismo and Impressionism were in his
mind linked with aristocratic privilege, while professionalism
and the scientific New Criticism were linked to democratic equality.
In this he was not at all like the Nashville Agrarians, such as
Tate and Ransom.
This conviction explains the ardor with which he advocated the
scientific approach. It would dethrone personalism and free
criticismto advance toward a democratic state. Further, it pro-
vided objective procedures for esthetic evaluation, promising a
final assessment based on the rigor and integrity Coutinho regarded
as characteristic of the professional critic, and wanting in the
amateur impressionist. Coutinho reminds one of Richards in his
view of criticism as a scientific instrument for measuring the de-
gree of pleasure-or communication as Richards would say-produced
by a work, a quantitative means of appreciating a qualitative
phenomenon. He says: "A arte visa a causar prazer estetico, e a
crftica tem por objetivo julgar o grau de eficiencia com que a
obra logrou atingir esse resultado e analisar os meios que usou
para isso."16
The unity of the work of art was of great importance to Coutinho,
who sought unity in all his intellectual endeavors. It is not sur-
prising then that he listed unity as the first concern of criticism:
"A primeira preocupagao da crftica e com o problema da unidade-a
especie de todo que a obra literaria forma ou nao logra formar, e
a relacao das varias partes entre si na construcao desse todo."17
Here unity to Coutinho means sets of relationships which must not
be sundered or thrown out of balance. Extreme or partial studies
incensed him because they destroyed the intricate web. Like new
critics elsewhere, he did not think that analysis and unity were
incompatible, because his procedure involved not only taking apart
a work of art but also putting it together in such a way as to
show how its pieces, or relationships, functioned in harmony.
But Coutinho, like Benedetto Croce, also took unity to mean the
fusion of form and content. Croce said that the "esthetic fact
. . is form, and nothing but form" because the expressive activ-
ity raises content to the level of form and transforms it. To
Croce, every intuition, or creative expression, is an indivisible

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94 Luso-BraziZlian Review

fusion of transmogrified elements.18 Coutinho echoed this view

in A Literatura: ". . . sao inseparveis e correlatos a forma e
o conteudo, como a alma e o corpo, constituindo a unidade ou uni-
cidade da obra de arte, um todo organico, . . .19
Perhaps sensing a contradiction in his use of unity to mean
both discrete sets of relationships as well as the oneness of form
and content, Coutinho in Por Uma Critica Estgtica (1954) and later
in A Literatura, settled on the notion of literature as a whole
made up of analyzable parts whose form provides the unifying prin-
ciple: ". . .a causa formal" constitutes "como queria Arist6teles,
o princlpio organizador e unificador das coisas."20 To Coutinho
even the ideas in a work exist only in the concrete fabric of the
text, having no independent abstract meaning. He quoted the Polish
critic Manfred Kridl to this effect, though one wonders whether
Coutinho really accepted it, for it is not evident in any of his
works:

As ideias na obra literaria nao tem a existencia e o carater

independente que possuem na vida, na filosofia, no politica.
Elas existem estreitamente amalgamadas com outros elementos
do todo, e devem, por isso, ser compreendidas e explicadas
em sua fun9ao literaria.21

Whatever the impreciseness of Coutinho's use of the term "unity",

it was for him a sacrosanct esthetic value, and one that he felt
duty-bound to impart to the Brazilian context, where the intent,
if not the meaning of "unity of the work" becomes very clear: to
protect literature from abuse. Coutinho feared that the tearing
apart of a work for its ideological content or social import was
all too common in Brazil. Art had to be rescued from the clutches
of those who would butcher it like a side of beef. Expressing the
sentiments of his mentor Wellek, Coutinho maintained that elements
such as form and structure, content and style could not be separ-
ated from the total concept of the work as a delicate tapestry of
interwoven meanings and values. Such a fragile creation required
the expert, sensitive hand of the trained critic to bring to light
its total meaning. The amador, unfit for the task by his impres-
sionism and personalism, bruised and battered the purity of art
with his tainted and heavy hand. Richards once compared the critic
to a doctor whose job is the health of the mind, and whose neglect
of this job is like a doctor refusing to practice medicine because
of the impudence of quacks.22 Coutinho would have agreed and would
have considered Richards' statement as supporting his goal of pro-
fessionalization.
As important as the textual focus and the unity of the work
were to Coutinho, the autonomy of literature was clearly the prin-
ciple dearest to his heart and nearest to his goals. Historical,
biographical and sociological views of literature dominated Bra-
zil's past until he came on the scene. To reverse this deeply
embedded idea of literature as the document of an epoch or person-
ality, Coutinho fought hard for the view of literature as an inde-
pendent phenomenon obeying its own internal laws.23 From the

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Denis Lynn Heyck

autonomy of literature to its professionalization was just a short,

logical step to him. If literature was not sociology, history,
psychology or anything other than literature, it followed that only
those people who dedicated themselves to its practice or study
could be called artists or critics. Once the esthetic and inde-
pendent nature of literature gained general acceptance, it was
automatically freed, in theory at least, from the drag of the ama-
teur and improviser. As Coutinho said: "Ja se foi o tempo em que
a literatura era uma brincadeira para o ocio dos privilegiados.
A sua profissionalizacao e uma consequencia da compreensdo de sua
natureza e funcao."24
But in his drive to free literature from history, and especially
from politics, he overstated his case, as in his claim that 1870
marked the "instant" of Brazilian literary autonomy: "t o instante
em que se consolida a autonomia literaria brasileira."25 It was
characteristic of Coutinho to move from a reasonable to an extreme
position, for his emotional impetus conflicted with the restraints
of his theory. He excused himself on the grounds that the old
theories were stubbornly impervious to moderate statement, an ex-
cuse that contains considerable truth: "Por isso a reacao que,
inaugurada por quem aqui escreve, tinha que ser necessariamente
contundente e polemica a enfatizar o lado oposto."26
The professionalization of literature and criticism, which
stemmed from the recognition of the principle of autonomy, was to
lead toward an even broader autonomy-cultural autonomy, in the
sense of independence from Portugal and Europe. The amateurish
and impressionistic views of literature were to him signs of the
colonialized mind, as was any view of Brazilian literary history
that assigned a large role to Portugal. To assert the critical
principle that literature is autonomous was, for a Brazilian, a
declaration of cultural independence. Further, Coutinho saw that
the weapon of stylistic periodization from the new critical arsenal
would serve the cause of both literary autonomy and cultural inde-
pendence. He used it to refashion the Brazilian literary past
along more esthetic lines, and in the process to persuade people
of the correctness of the notion of literary autonomy. Coutinho's
view of stylistic periodization, which stressed styles of epochs
more than genres, had the added benefit of making Portugal dis-
appear from Brazilian literary history as if by sleight of hand.
Through stylistic periodization Coutinho embedded cultural nation-
alism in esthetic grounds. In doing so he violated every rule of
the New Criticism strictly defined, but remained true to the most
constant intellectual tradition in Latin American culture-that of
the artist's commitment to nation-building.
This commitment is responsible for the many original adaptations
of European ideologies or artistic currents to the Latin American
setting. For every classic European intellectual formulation, such
as Liberalism, Positivism, or Marxism for example, there exists a
Latin American version. The same is true for the New Criticism.
The Latin American version does not imply that the Latin American
intelligentsia misunderstood the true doctrine but, rather, that
they took from it what was applicable to their national situation.

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96 Luso-Brazilian Review

Immersed in the Latin American milieu, foreign ideologies lost some

of their old characteristics, acquired others, and became new
things.
The Latin American artist, given the economically underdeveloped
state of Latin America by European and North American standards,
has had to be an intellectual one man band in order to fulfill
his social function, and he has had to possess the spirit of both
Ariel and Don Quijote not to be weighted down by his task. Coutin-
ho, like many foreign and Latin American observers, tended to re-
gard the Latin American cultural tradition as a crazy quilt with-
out pattern. But the truth is that, with a little effort, one
discovers beneath the disjointed surface the continuous thread of
the artist's involvement in national construction.
It is ironic that, in his zeal to create a new tradition-based
on critical consciousness and literary-cultural autonomy-Coutinho
did not see that he was acting in accord with this important con-
stant in Latin American intellectual history. It is doubly ironic
in view of his frequent recourse to Eliot to bolster his assertions
that the past exerts-and should exert-a strong influence on the
present. But where Eliot stressed the reciprocal and simultaneous
influence of past and present, Coutinho, like his fellow new
critics Eduardo Portella and Lulz Costa Lima, among others, saw
the past rather as something to be redeemed by the present. Thus,
tradition in his mind was equated with the national tradition,
which was equated with cultural autonomy-a concept far closer to
the romantics than to Eliot. The liberties Coutinho allowed him-
self with Eliot's views on tradition are themselves part of the
selective process by which foreign ideas pass through the filter
of nationalism to become useful to the national cause.
In the meantime, Coutinho set about breaking the bonds of the
old periodization that reflected the lack of autonomy-esthetic and
cultural. Political and historical periodizations of Brazilian
literature, which were the only ones before Coutinho, ignored the
artistic styles of various epochs, grouping them all indiscrimin-
ately under "colonial" or "national" period type headings. He
rightly said in A Literatura: "Uma literatura nao e colonial so
porque se produz numa colonia e nao se torna nacional apenas
depois da independencia da nacao."27 But he was never known for
letting well enough alone. He went on to say, like Araripe nearly
a century before:

A nossa literatura foi 'brasileira' desde o primeiro instante,

assim como foi brasileiro o homem que no Brasil se firmou
desde o momento em que o europeu aqui pos o pe e aqui ficou.

Assim, a literatura brasileira primitiva nao e colonial, mas

barr6ca e brasileira.28

This statement, of course, conflicts with his designation of 1870

as the instant of Brazilian autonomy, as well as with his state-
ments in A Literatura that Brazilian literature still does not
possess its autonomy: "Ao contemplar a historia da literatura

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Denis Lynn Heyck 97

brasileira nao fugimos a uma impressao pessimista. ? uma litera-

tura pobre. Ainda nao chegamos mesmo a plena posse de uma litera-
tura ."29 And: "A evolugao literaria brasileira nao passou de um
reflexo dos movimentos europeus."30 But, on the whole, he felt
that Brazilian literature had always been autonomous, for his
sentiments were more nationalistic than esthetic. Consequently,
he dedicated nearly all of his periodological revisions to the
colonial period, reacting strongly against the standard view of
Brazilian colonial literature as merely a "prolongamento da liter-
atura portuguesa .. "31
In stressing the development of a Brazilian literature inde-
pendent of Portugal, he backed himself into a corner. He consid-
ered colonial literature Brazilian rather than colonial or Port-
uguese because of social, climatic, cultural, i.e., nonesthetic
reasons:

. . . antes de ser uma nacao o Brasil era um pals, mesmo

politicamente dependente de Portugal. Um pals habitado por
um povo, que havia muito se diferenciava do colonizador em
habitos, sentimentos, aspiracoes, fala, uma sociedade que,
por f6rca da miscigenacao e aculturacao intensivas, plantada
em uma situagao geografica inteiramente nova e diferente, se
constitulra com fisionomia diversa da portuguesa. A litera-
tura, como a danga, comoo canto, como a musica, ndo podem
deixar de ter sido diferentes tambem desde o inlcio, quando
o habitante queos expressava era um homem n6vo desde o inlcio,
logo que aqui botou o pe, e criou nova atitude, novos habitos
culinarios, criou nova sistema de convivencia com os outros
homens, a fauna, a flora, e teve que lidar com novos tipos
de animals e comer novas frutas, existentes numa natureza
diferente, diante da qual caiu em verdadeiro extase. Se
outros eram o homem e a sociedade, diversos deveriam ter
sido e foram a literatura e demais artes.32

Such an Edenic explanation of the original development of Bra-

zilian letters vis a vis Portugal is plausible enough, but it is
sharply inconsistent with Coutinho's insistence that any litera-
ture is free of social determinants. As he said in A Literatura:
"a arte e dotada de existencia plena e aut6noma, independente da
historia, filosofia, ciencias flsicas, biologicas e sociais."33
In combatting the colonial and national period categories as well
as the Luso-Brazilian designation, Coutinho was forced into socio-
logical, political and historical explanations of literature.34

II

Coutinho as a general rule did not write literary criticism.

His job was to spread the message, not to practice it, and he
directed his time and energies to this ultimate objective. What
Richard Foster says of Allen Tate's theory and criticism also
characterizes those of Coutinho:

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98 Luso-BraziZian Review

Tate has always been less a technical critic (and, we might

add, literary theorist) than an essayist using literature as
the frame of reference within which he criticizes the mind
and life of his time in the light of his convictions about
the proper ends of man.35

Coutinho's talents were much more suited to literary history

than to theory or criticism. Throughout his literary histories
one sees a revisionist intent manifested either as an attempt to
place Brazilian literature and intellectual history in world per-
spective-as in Aspectos da Literatura Barroca (1950) and
EucZides, Capistrano e Araripe (1959)-or as an attempt to apply
new critical principles to Brazilian literary history-as in
Machado de Assis na Literatura BrasiZeira (1960) and A Literatura
no Brasil (1955-1959). Generally speaking,he did both in all his
literary histories, but the emphasis varied from book to book.
Coutinho's claim as a literary historian rests heavily on his
monumental A Literatura no Brasil. Based on the concept of the
autonomy of literature, A Literatura was an attempt to revise
Brazilian literary history along modern, esthetic lines. Previous
literary histories, in their concentration on the history of
society and of politics, had relegated the history of literature
to a comparatively insignificant place. As early as 1952 Coutinho
began assembling his team of more than fifty specialists to cor-
rect this longstanding failing and to write a literary history,
that is, a history of literature per se. He says: "A literatura
e encarada como uma arte e a historia literaria e a hist6ria dessa
arte."36 In order to achieve his goal, Coutinho strove to base
his methodology exclusively on esthetic periodization, the key to
appreciating ". . . o fato literario em termos de tradicao
literaria, . . .37 But one can see the fluid limits of "a
tradi9ao literaria" through a brief look at the outline Coutinho
drew up for his work.
He divided A Literatura into three parts. The first part con-
tained the doctrinal bases, found early in Volume I and scattered
also among the Introductions he wrote to each volume. The second
part consisted of individual studies by various contributors on
"Generalidades" like "0 Folclore: Literatura Oral e Literatura
Popular", "A Llngua Literaria", and studies on "Estilos de Epoca e
Movimentos Literarios", like the Baroque, Romanticism and Modern-
ism. These essays comprised the bulk of A Literatura, including a
portion of Volume I, and all of Volumes II, III, IV and V. The
third part, Volume VI, was dedicated to the individual genres such
as drama, the short story and the essay. But whether Coutinho
wanted it or not, historical and sociological criteria were built
into the structure of A Literatura. Chapters such as Fernando de
Azevedo's "A Escola e a Literatura" on education in the history of
literature, and Antonio Candido's "0 Escritor e o Publico" might
more properly belong in a cultural history than a literary his-
tory. The sixth volume strayed even further into cultural his-
tory, including essays on the relationships between literature and
journalism, literature and art, and literature and juridical

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Denis Lynn Heyck 99

thought. Such breadth of scope would be a strength rather than a

fault if Coutinho had not insisted: ". .. A Literatura no BrasiZ
e uma hist6ria da Literatura, e nao da cultura brasileira."38
Others have criticized him for writing a cultural history, but one
can argue that while Coutinho's definition of history of litera-
ture moved very close to cultural history, it successfully main-
tained a distinction from it. He focused on the influence of
literature on other aspects of Brazilian culture, rather than
mutual relationships which a cultural historian would highlight.
Coutinho's doctrinal bases were later published separately as a
book, Conceito da Literatura Brasileira (1960). He took much of
his introductory materials, including his Preface to the second
edition, from earlier articles; as a consequence, they have a
patched quality about them and are often contradictory as well as
repetitive. Coutinho, like Wellek, considered literary criticism
and literary history to be inextricably related. But Coutinho
went on to confuse the two. It is ironic that Coutinho here re-
sembles the early impressionist and sociological critics whose
identification of literary criticism and literary history he
roundly condemned. His confusion of the two led him to dedicate
too much space to the triumphs of the nova critica and this tends
to mislead his readers into concluding that a literary history is
the same thing as a piece of criticism because they both treat
literature esthetically. He says of criticism: "A concepcao
estetica da cr?tica impoe o reconhecimento do primado do texto,
. . .", and, "Seu metodo e a analise, close analysis, do material
artfstico."39 He wanted literary history to treat the "narrativa
de seu [literature's] desenvolvimento interno, das causas de sua
acensao e decllnio, dos elementos que a compoem."40 But it is
difficult to see how close analysis of individual works could
yield the literary historian explanations of the coming and going
of literary styles, which is not necessarily a new critical ob-
jective, but it must be the aim of any historian, and it was one
of Coutinho's goals.
Of the nova critica Coutinho correctly says in A Literatura:
"E inegavel que a grande conquista da nova critica e a mudanca
da visdo crltica dos elementos extrlnsecos da literatura para os
elementos intrlnsecos, isto e, das condicoes ou circunstancias
exteriores da producao para o estudo da obra em si."41 But put-
ting this principle-broad as it is-into practice was difficult
when applied to a literary past that was consciously nourished on
the richness of the Brazilian setting, and whose real merits were
likely to be as much social and historical as esthetic. Coutinho
always maintained that methodological pluralism was the best ap-
proach to a work, and that the method should vary according to the
work to be analyzed; but it pained him to admit that much of
Brazil's literary past might best be appreciated in this way, as
if it were tantamount to an admission of its inferiority.
Coutinho recognized, for example, the union of politics and let-
ters in Brazil's history, saying: "Caminham confundidas, e e
diflcil concebermos o homem de letras puro, que nao seja, ao mesmo
tempo, um pensador, um guia de opinido polTtica."42 But he

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100 Luso-Brazi Zian Review

regretted it, especially because this tendency which predominated

during the nineteenth century obstinately continued into the
present; it was one of the main reasons he pushed so hard for pro-
fessionalization. But Coutinho also felt, like the art historian
Herbert Read, whose works he read, that ". . . society as a viable
organic entity, is somehow dependent on art as a binding, fusing
and energizing force."43 It was all right for art to influence
society, but not for society to influence art; it troubled
Coutinho to have this natural dependence reversed in the Brazilian
case.
The contradictions inherent in Coutinho's esthetic concep-
tualization of Brazilian literature became apparent in his at-
tempts at sharp definition. For example, he considered esthetic
all those elements in the text itself, such as style, texture and
structure. But perhaps finding this definition inadequate for a
literary history, in the same "Prefacio da Segunda Edicao" he
emphasized the global inclusiveness of the esthetic concept:
"o estetico engloba o social, o geografico, o historico, o
psicol6gico, o polltico."44 Without further explanation or
qualification, one must conclude that, in this case, esthetic is
so all-embracing a term that it has no meaning. Similarly,
Coutinho regarded the nova critica as "revolucionario, pois sub-
verte inteiramente a posicao do esplrito crltico em face da obra
de arte literaria."45 But on the same page he backtracked, re-
ferring to it as merely a question of emphasis: "Insista-se:
a questdo e de enfase."46 There is a lot of room between
"revolutionary" and a "question of emphasis."
However, Coutinho is not to be judged too harshly for the in-
consistencies in his introductory remarks to A Literatura; the
reality was just too big to be constrained by the limits of his
theory. In many ways, what Coutinho actually did was better
than what he said about it; that is, his literary histories them-
selves were more valid than the concepts that inspired them. He
seemed naturally pulled by healthy tendencies away from the nar-
rowness of his intellectualized theory. If he had only admitted
that the reality was too broad to be funnelled into his narrow
conceptual framework, his accomplishments would have loomed even
larger. Coutinho was very much like the English critic F. R.
Leavis, whom George Watson characterized aptly in The Literary
Critics. Leavis believed that his values "were embattled and in
imminent danger of extinction"; therefore, "a simple peccavi be-
came a tactical impossibility for him. To give way on one point
would have seemed like surrendering along an entire front."47
Coutinho asked the question put by Wellek: "Is it possible to
write literary history, that is, to write that which will be both
literary and a history?"48 He answered affirmatively and used
stylistic periodization as the connective tissue uniting concep-
tion and execution of A Literatura into an organic whole. It was
inevitable, however, and only reasonable to expect, that what
Daiches says of practical criticism would also be true of "prac-
tical" literary history, especially for Coutinho who identified
the two: it is ". . . more flexible and more complex in method

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Denis Lynn Heyck 101

than any theoretical statement about it is likely to be." In

practice we move back and forth between history and esthetic
criticism, between descriptive and normative criticism; and when-
ever we deal with the works of the past, the past is always with
us.49
Coutinho has been unjustly accused of being anti-historical.
It is more accurate to say that he opposed only the dominance of
the historical interpretation of literature. His view of the
function of history was much like that of Northrop Frye, and he
attempted to realize the task Frye has as his thesis in The
Critical Path (1971): "Criticism must develop a sense of history
within literature to complement the historical criticism that re-
lates literature to its non-literary historical background."50
But putting this subtle distinction into practice required more
agility than Coutinho, or most people for that matter, possessed.
It is important to bear in mind that Coutinho aimed not only to
produce an esthetic literary history in directing A Literatura,
but also to leave a landmark in the process of professionaliza-
tion. This goal was always in the forefront of Coutinho's desires.
In A Literatura, as in his other works, professionalization was
indissolubly linked to the autonomy of literature. The artistic
purpose of A Literatura required hand-picked specialists to serve
as living examples of professional autonomy and to contribute
what Coutinho called their expert "know-how" to explaining the
literary phenomenon in modern terms.51 Technical "know-how", ac-
quired through the university, would eventually obliterate a per-
nicious amateurism whose main trait was its personalist focus.
His distaste for it was so strong that he listed all the contribu-
tors to A Literatura at the end of each volume rather than with
their own essays. (shades of I. A. Richards!) Coutinho's estimate
of the reading public was low, and he feared that readers would
choose what to read according to who wrote it rather than what it
contained, thereby destroying the conceptual unity of the work-
his work. He says of his decision:

Em obras como esta, nao eo nome do autor do capftulo que deve

interessar em primeira linha, mas o valor do conjunto, o plano,
a execucao. Nao se trata, no caso, de uma antologiade ensaios,
mas de um todo organico, com fio condutor interno. Contanto
quea autoria esteja indicada em qualquer parte,o leitor nao
deve ser levado a leitura seduzido pela importdncia desse ou
daquele colaborador, mas pelo interesse do assuntoe valor do
tratamento. Por isso e que se adotouo criterio, emA Literatura
no BrasiZ, de dissimular a autoria, registrando-a embora no
final de cada tomo ou volume.52

In the end, A Literatura-because of its long list of contri-

butors and because of the logical inconsistencies of Coutinho's
theoretical principles-was a work of uneven quality. But it
would be wrong to dismiss A Literatura because of its shortcomings
when its strengths lay much heavier in the balance. It was the
first coordinated, cooperative effort to bring many minds to bear

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102 Luso-Brazilian Review

on a difficult subject. A spirit of professional scholarship,

with few exceptions, manifested itself throughout the volumes,
which included excellent bibliographical information and scholarly
documentation, unusual even as late as the 1950's. A Literatura
nudged Brazilian literary history from the complacency in which it
had languished for too long. It revitalized the teaching of
literature with its esthetic periodization and comprehensive
scope, much as Cleanth Brooks' and Austin Warren's Understanding
Poetry (1938) had done some years before in North America. And
while the literary nationalism that informed Coutinho's overview
caused him to contradict himself on the delicate relationships of
esthetic autonomy and social factors, and to exaggerate claims for
national literary independence, A Literatura unquestionably over-
turned Sllvio Romero's classic study to become the most original,
influential and audacious history of Brazilian literature in this
century.

III

Coutinho's theories of literature and criticism were a syn-

thesis of the ideas of the great theorists he admired. To his
credit, he never tried to peddle his theories as anything other
than a combination, obviously an uneasy one, of the ideas of other
minds. But his own intellectual and psychological need to find a
harmonious unity, a single direction in modern thought, and his
desire to use it to revolutionize Brazilian literary life,
blinded him to the complex and conflicting currents in modern
literary thought. An example of Coutinho's limitations in this
regard is his seeming unawareness of the diametrically opposed
opinions toward science that the New Criticism contained. But
Coutinho was more a divuZgador, a popularizer, than a theorist,
and the shortcomings of his theories are mitigated by the enor-
mity of the reformist task he had set himself. His mission re-
quired overstatement, oversimplification and overkill; it inevi-
tably precluded subtlety of thought.
Throughout Coutinho's writings one sees a consistent attempt
to apply the theoretical principles of the New Criticism to
Brazilian cultural problems as he saw them. At first glance, it
appears that mixing the New Criticism and cultural problems is
like mixing oil and water. But Coutinho was never daunted by the
impossible. In the tradition of the quixotic Latin American in-
tellectual who "dreams the impossible dream", Coutinho always be-
lieved that his goal could be realized. And if he was like Mr.
Bulstrode in George Eliot's Middtemarch "whose desires" were
"stronger than his theoretic beliefs", Coutinho turned this de-
fect into a strength because his remarkable self-confidence con-
vinced him that he was the man to bring it off.53 Coutinho sought
to accomplish his task through a selective synthesis of the ideas
of leading literary theorists, and through a constant hammering
away at the same themes to arouse a dormant literary conscious-
ness. He boldly wedded the resistant New Criticism to the broad
Brazilian purpose and, in so doing, created a unique brand of New

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Denis Lynn Heyck 103

Criticism-a Latin American version. If his consuming sense of

national mission forced him into contradictory positions and sim-
plistic statements, still his contributions are impressive. And
his excesses served the useful purpose of provoking and irritat-
ing others into thinking seriously about the issues Coutinho
hurled before them like defiant challenges, if only to refute
them. He wrote with fierce energy and unrestrained passion; he
created a terrific controversy and put himself in the midst of it,
the hot spot he liked best.

NOTES

1Though Coutinho repeatedly stressed the varied influences

that fed the nova crotica (such as Russian formalism, the Spanish
stylistics school, and the works of Aristotle, Coleridge and
Croce), it is helpful to keep in mind that the Anglo-American New
Criticism had by far the greatest influence on Coutinho per-
sonally.
2Norman Foerster, "Esthetic Judgment and Ethical Judgment", in
RayB. West, ed., Essays in Modern Literary Criticism (New York,
1952), p. 206.
3John L. Stewart, The Burden of Time (Princeton, 1965), p. 310.
4Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XXXVII.
5Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XIV.
6Edwin Berry Bergum, The New Criticism (New York, 1930), pp.
106, 102.
7john Crowe Ransom, The New Criticism (Norfolk, Conn., 1941),
p. 20.
8Afranio Coutinho, Correntes Cruzadas (Rio, 1953), p. 235.
9Afranio Coutinho, Critica e Criticos (Rio, 1969), p. 37.
10For example, Stanley Edgar Hyman points out in The Armed
Vision (New York, 1955), pp. 12-13, that recent studies have shown
both Aristotle and the neo-Aristotelians at the University of
Chicago to be thoroughly Platonic in practice.
11Coutinho, Correntes, p. 216.
12Coutinho, Correntes, p. 217.
13David Daiches, Critical Approaches to Literature (Englewood
Cliffs, 1956), p. 392.
14Coutinho, Correntes, p. 217.
15Coutinho, Correntes, p. 98.
16Coutinho, Critica e Criticos, p. 113.
17Coutinho, Correntes, p. 216.
SBurgum, The New Criticism, pp. 45, 46, 50.
19Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XLVIII.
20Afranio Coutinho, Por Uma Crftica Estetica (Rio, 1954), p.
13; Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XLVIII.
21Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XLIX.
22I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism (New York,
1928), pp. 34-35.
23Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XXVI.
24Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. LII.

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104 Luso-BraziZian Review

25Afrdnio Coutinho, EucZides, Capistrano e Araripe (Rio, 1959),

p. 83.
26Coutinho, A Literatura, I, pp. XXVIII-XXIX.
27Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. LVI.
28Ibid.
29Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. 36.
30Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. 37.
31Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. LIX.
32Ibid.
33Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XXVI.
34For example, Coutinho in A Literatura, I, p. 36, attributed
the shortcomings of Brazilian literature to the fact that
Brazilians have still not completely consolidated "a formagao
do pals, sem o que se torna imposslvel, em plenitude, uma litera-
tura vigorosa e original."
35Steward, The Burden, p. 311.
36Coutinho, A Literatura, p. XIII.
37Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XIV.
38Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XIII.
39Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XIV.
40Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XIII.
41Coutinho, A Literatura, I, pp. XIV-XV.
42Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. 35.
43Herbert Read, Art and Alienation (London, 1967), p. 16.
44Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. LIV.
45Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XXXIX.
46Ibid.
47George Watson, The Literary Critics (Middlesex, 1973), p.
203.
48Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature (New
York, 1942), p. 263.
49Daiches, Critical Approaches, p. 328.
50Northrop Frye, The Critical Path (Bloomington, 1971), p. 24.
51Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. LIII.
52Coutinho, A Literatura, I, p. XXI.
53George Eliot, Middlemarch (London, 1959), p. 663.

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