Literatura de Cordel

Literatura de Cordel The term “literatura de cordel,” which translates from Portuguese to “literature on a string,” describes the tradition of selling printed poems in pamphlets pinned to strings in the open-air markets of northeastern Brazil. These cordels document social histories, cultural traditions, folklore, and international events through the perspectives of their authors.

Background Literatura de cordel has existed in Brazil since the late nineteenth century. Before the 1960s, cordels were called “folhetos” (or “pamphlets”). Traditional pamphlets cover diverse topics, such as biblical reinterpretation, love stories, poetic duels, folk tales, political history, and reports of natural disasters. Scholars Candace Slater, Mark J. Curran, and Umberto Peregrino note that while these pamphlets resemble mid-nineteenth-century chapbook-like materials from Portugal, their storytelling roots date back to songs from the 1750s. Poets such as Antonio Ugolino Nunes da Costa and his family in Teixeira, Paraíba, participated in poetic duels called “cantoria de repentista” or “cantoria de viola.” These duels were both musical and verbal contests, echoes of which can be seen in written “pelejas,” pamphlets that reproduce improvised poetic duels.

The first printed Brazilian pamphlets appeared in the late 1800s but became widespread only in the mid-twentieth century. Small publishers were instrumental in the distribution of the pamphlets. Among them were Francisco Rodrigues Lopes, who started Editora Guajarina in Belém in 1914, and José Bernardo da Silva, who began Tipografia São Francisco in Juazeiro do Norte in 1932. By the 1950s, literatura de cordel began to appear in new contexts. The Casa das Crianças de Olinda (or House of the Children of Olinda), for example, commissioned poets and illustrators to create cordels, and state-funded programs such as the Programa Nacional de Melhoramento da Cana-de-Açúcar (National Program for the Improvement of Sugarcane) hired poets to educate the public on agricultural practices. Similar initiatives in the 1980s addressed public safety concerns, teaching about AIDS, sexual health, and substance abuse.

International and local historians have recognized the tradition’s cultural value. The Universidade Federal da Paraíba established a research group to document traditional stories in cordel form. In the 1970s, documentarians created films that showcased the elements of this movement, such as Vladimir Carvalho’s O país de São Saruê (or The country of Saint Saruê) and Tânia Quaresma’s Nordeste: Cordel, repente, canção (or Northeast: Cordel, repente, song).