Cordel, Brazilian Popular Culture & Exodus

by Lavinia Cyrillo

This pamphlet is, in fact, the cover of a booklet - a chapbook - of the literary genre Cordel, entitled A Prescrição Bienal ou A Lei dos 2 Anos. The Cordel remains to this day an essential element of Brazil’s northeastern culture and tradition. It encompasses visual, oral, and written elements of a popular character that seek to inform, entertain, and educate the masses through its use of simplistic images and language. For the purpose of this brief analysis, focus will be given to these crucial elements, represented, respectively, by the Xilogravura de Cordel and by the presentation of rhymes.

In his book Eyewitnessing, Peter Burke assesses the different roles images and illustrations play as historical agents. Among them, he highlights that of “stimuli to mediation,” arguing that images often complement and reinforce both the written and spoken word. Thus, where the written word might pose an obstacle to audiences, images may be a tool for clearer and more effective communication. Such is the case of the so-called Xilogravura de Cordel. The Xilogravura consists of a printing technique based on wood carving, which is covered in black paint and pressed against cheap paper - very much like a stamp. It represents an affordable and accessible artistic manifestation that found favourable soil in the Sertão, where vast portions of the masses have historically been afflicted by droughts, poverty, and inequality. By 1970, over fifty percent of the northeastern population above the age of fifteen were declared illiterate. Hence, effective communication was deeply reliant on alternative sources, of which the Xilogravura de Cordel remains a pivotal example.

Soares’ illustrations sought to communicate the stiff consequences of the Lei dos Dois Anos (The Law of the Two Years) to the everyday life of the sertanejos (inhabitants and labourers of the Sertão, whose livelihood by and large depended on agricultural production). Such an attempt is revealed by his choice of images: they depict common elements of northeastern culture, fostering a sense of self-identification within its audience. The sun indeed evokes the high temperatures that often damaged crops and livestock, worsening the already dire socio-economic conditions of sertanejos. Yet, the fact that it is impossible to determine whether the sun is rising or setting alludes to the repetition of the sertanejo’s daily journey of labour - working the land is thus not only his craft, but his life, his primordial occupation.

The representation of the hoe is equally telling, as the main instrument used during harvests. The fact that the sertanejo is barefoot is of crucial importance. It highlights not only the dire reality of pervasive poverty, but his intrinsic connection to the land: his feet are as embedded in the earth just as the roots of the plants he is harvesting. The effect of this illustration is an emphasis on the sertanejo’s reliance on agricultural production, and on his emotional and even physical dependence on his native land. Through this Xilogravura, even illiterate elements of the population could identify themselves with the image, and engage in a dialogue that would otherwise be impossible if solely based on the written word.

The use of rhymes, although not depicted in the pamphlet, complements the importance of the Xilogravura de Cordel. The rhymes of Cordel are inseparable from the oral traditions of Northeastern culture, despite having its roots traced back to the arrival of Portuguese colonisers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The open-air markets and squares of Brazil’s Northeast presented a flourishing stage for popular poets. Through their simplistic, albeit rigorous rhymes (usually following the metre abcbdb or ababccb), these poets sang out loud common themes, such as elements of northeastern daily life, social malaises, and even folklore. In so doing, they established the Cordel as a crucial tool of communication within northeastern communities, rendering it the “people’s newspaper.” As a primordially oral artistic manifestation, the Cordel has been successful in reaching the masses: both by virtue of the poet’s physical positioning (in markets, the so-called feiras, and different sorts of public spaces), and of the simplicity of the words and themes, this genre contributes to a sense of identification within the northeastern - and overall Brazilian - public.

The case of A Prescrição Bienal exemplifies the importance of these rhymes. This Cordel targets the possible consequences of loss of land for the sertanejos, while highlighting their connection to the countryside. It calls for a united front of agricultural labourers in defence of their rights over the land they cultivate. Alongside the xilogravuras, the rhymes (which were most likely originally sung by the poets) aimed for a sense of unity and identification among members of the sertanejo community. Following usual features of the genre, this pamphlet epitomises the importance of the Cordel as a means of communication, education, and artistic manifestation. . .