Poetry
The Death and Life of a Severino
Morte e vida severina
João Cabral de Melo Neto · 1955
Synopsis
Severino, an emigrant among many others who bear the same name, leaves the interior of Pernambuco and follows the Capibaribe towards Recife, driven out by drought and poverty. Along the way he meets men carrying in a hammock a peasant killed over a land dispute, attends a funeral wake, looks for work in a village where people live only from death, then crosses the sugar-cane fields of the coast, where a farm labourer is being buried. Each stage shows him the same death, that of all the Severinos.
Context
Written in 1954 and 1955, the poem appeared in 1955 according to its French publisher. It presents itself as a Pernambucan Christmas auto, in eighteen parts and in seven-syllable verse. In 1965, the theatre of the Catholic University of São Paulo staged it to music by Chico Buarque, then at the beginning of his career, and the troupe was awarded a prize the following year at the university theatre festival in Nancy. According to the Latin American Theatre Review, the federal censorship then interrupted the performances in Brazil. The text was not translated in full into French until 2023.
Who it is for
A short poem in simple verse, which its author said was made to be heard more than read; the 2023 edition gives the Portuguese facing the translation.
Prizes and reception
A poem of considerable success, whose version sung by a novice composer won a prize at the Nancy university theatre festival in 1966.
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