Gilberto Freyre
Encyclopedia
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian sociologist, anthropologist, historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and congressman. His best-known work is a sociological treatise named Casa-Grande & Senzala
Casa-Grande & Senzala
Published in 1933, Casa-Grande e Senzala is a book by Gilberto Freyre, about the formation of the Brazilian society. The "Casa-Grande" refers to the landlords residences in sugar plantations, where whole towns were owned and managed by one man...
(variously translated, but roughly The Masters and the Slaves, as on a traditional plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
). Two sequels followed, The Mansions and the Shanties: the making of modern Brazil and Order and Progress: Brazil from monarchy to republic. The trilogy is generally considered a classic of modern cultural anthropology and social history, although it is not without its critics.
Biography
Gilberto Freyre (born in RecifeRecife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
, Northeast Brazil, 1900–1987) was a well-known Brazilian intellectual, who was a sociologist, writer, journalist, politician and social-theorist. He is commonly associated with other great Brazilian cultural interpreters of the first half of the 20th century, such as Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Caio Prado Júnior.
Like other Latin-American intellectuals, Freyre had an internationalist and precocious academic career, having studied at Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
, Texas from the age of eighteen and then at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he got his master's degree under the tutelage of Willian Shepperd. At Columbia Freyre was a student of the anthropologist Franz Boas, but his ideas were not influential to Freyre's work save after a considerable period of nurturing and studying.
After coming back to Recife in 1923, Freyre spearheaded a handful of writers of the so-called Regionalista Movement. After working extensively as a journalist, he was made Head of Cabinet of the Governor of the State of Pernambuco, Estácio Coimbra. With the 1930 revolution and the rise of Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...
, both Coimbra and Freyre went into exile. Freyre went first to Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and then to the US, where he worked as Visiting Professor at Stanford.
Freyre's most widely known work is The Masters and the Slaves
Casa-Grande & Senzala
Published in 1933, Casa-Grande e Senzala is a book by Gilberto Freyre, about the formation of the Brazilian society. The "Casa-Grande" refers to the landlords residences in sugar plantations, where whole towns were owned and managed by one man...
(Casa-Grande & Senzala
Casa-Grande & Senzala
Published in 1933, Casa-Grande e Senzala is a book by Gilberto Freyre, about the formation of the Brazilian society. The "Casa-Grande" refers to the landlords residences in sugar plantations, where whole towns were owned and managed by one man...
, 1933). This is a revolutionary work for the study of races and cultures in Brazil, written in a quite personal and impressionistic tone. The book is a turning point in the analysis of the black heritage in Brazil, which is highly extolled by Gilberto Freyre. His effort both to rehabilitate the black culture and identify Brazil as a conciliatory country is comparable to the ones of other Latin American writers, such as Fernando Ortiz in Cuba (Contrapunteo Cubano de Tobacco y Azúcar, 1940), José Vasconcelos in Mexico (La Raza Cosmica, 1926).
The Masters and the Slaves is the first of a series of three books, that included The Mansions and the Shanties (1938) and Order and Progress (1957). Other very important contributions of Freyre were Northeast (Nordeste) and The English in Brazil (1948).
The actions of Freyre as a public intellectual are rather controversial. Labeled as a communist in the '30s, he was considered a right-wing reactionary thereafter, mainly because of his dubious support of the Salazar Regime in Portugal in the '50s and his embracement of the Brazilian military regime after 1964. Freyre is considered to be the "father" of lusotropicalism
Lusotropicalism
Lusotropicalism or Luso-Tropicalism was first coined by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre,to describe the distinctive character of the Portuguese imperialism in several lectures, and is a belief and movement especially strong during the António de Oliveira Salazar dictatorship in Portugal ,...
: the theory whereby miscegenation had been a positive force in Brazil ("miscegenation" at that time tended to be viewed in a negative way, like in the theories of Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer was a German professor of medicine, anthropology and eugenics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics between 1927 and 1942...
and Charles Davenport
Charles Davenport
Charles Benedict Davenport was a prominent American eugenicist and biologist. He was one of the leaders of the American eugenics movement, which was directly involved in the sterilization of around 60,000 "unfit" Americans and strongly influenced the Holocaust in Europe.- Biography :Davenport was...
.
Gilberto Freyre was also recognised by his literary style. He also wrote poems, his poem "Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
of all saints and of almost sins" got Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Carneiro de Sousa Bandeira Filho was a poet, literary critic, and translator.Bandeira wrote over 20 books of poetry and prose. In 1904, he found out that he suffered from tuberculosis, which encouraged him to move from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, because of Rio's tropical beach weather...
's enthusiasm. Gilberto Freyre wrote this long poem inspired by his first visit to Salvador
Salvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...
: Bahia of all saints and of almost all sins. Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Carneiro de Sousa Bandeira Filho was a poet, literary critic, and translator.Bandeira wrote over 20 books of poetry and prose. In 1904, he found out that he suffered from tuberculosis, which encouraged him to move from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, because of Rio's tropical beach weather...
wrote about it in June 1927: "Your poem, Gilberto, will be an eternal source of jealousy to me"(cf. Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Bandeira
Manuel Carneiro de Sousa Bandeira Filho was a poet, literary critic, and translator.Bandeira wrote over 20 books of poetry and prose. In 1904, he found out that he suffered from tuberculosis, which encouraged him to move from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, because of Rio's tropical beach weather...
, Poesia e Prosa. Rio de Janeiro: Aguilar, 1958, v. II: Prose, p. 1398).
A re-evaluation of Freyre's work is timely. Not only is he one of the greatest writers of Portuguese prose, but he also developed pioneering ideas on hybridism, cultural translation, material culture, and many other fields.
Quotes
“Every Brazilian, even the light skinned fair haired one carries about him on his soul, when not on soul and body alike, the shadow or at least the birthmark of the aborigine or the negro, in our affections, our excessive mimicry, our Catholicism which so delights the senses, our music, our gait, our speech, our cradle songs, in everything that is a sincere expression of our lives, we almost all of us bear the mark of that influence.”-The Masters and the Slaves
Select bibliography
- Brazil: an interpretation
- The Masters and the Slaves: a study in the development of Brazilian civilization
- New World in the Tropics: the culture of modern Brazil
- The Mansions and the Shanties: the making of modern Brazil
- Order and Progress: Brazil from monarchy to republic
- Sugar
- Olinda
- Men, engineering and social routes
- Sociology
- Brazilian problems of Anthropology
- Order and Progress: Brazil from monarchy to republic
- The Northeast: Aspects of Sugarcane Influence on Life and Landscape
Sources
External links
See also
- LusotropicalismLusotropicalismLusotropicalism or Luso-Tropicalism was first coined by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre,to describe the distinctive character of the Portuguese imperialism in several lectures, and is a belief and movement especially strong during the António de Oliveira Salazar dictatorship in Portugal ,...
- Mixed Race DayMixed Race DayMixed Race Day is celebrated on June 27 in Brazil as a reference to the twenty-seven mixed-race representatives elected during the 1st Conference for the Promotion of Racial Equality, which occurred in the city of Manaus, State of Amazonas, Brazil, from April 7 to 9, 2005...
- Research Materials: Max Planck Society ArchiveResearch Materials: Max Planck Society ArchiveAt the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was renamed the Max Planck Society, and the institutes associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were renamed "Max Planck" institutes. The records that were archived under the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes were placed in the...