Gilberto Freyre: The Poetic Optics of His Lusotropicalist Imagination

Abstract

Beyond being a renowned founding proponent and scholar of Brazilian miscegenation theory, not much is known about Gilberto Freyre as a poet. His unique poetic collection, Poesia Reunida[i] (1980) [Collected Poetry], provides a rare window into the journeys and reflections of the anthropologist as he travels the world. Invoking issues related to women, family, slavery, nostalgic landscapes, and an overall sensibility to Lusotropicalist fantasies, Freyre embraces multiracial ideology while also exuding a laissez-faire attitude towards the struggles of the weak—,the colonized Amerindian and enslaved African population in Brazil— whom he superficially empathizes with. Whether he shares individual memories of transverse landscapes within and outside Brazil, iconic images of certain personalities in the characterization of Brazilian identity or his own circle of family and professional intimacies, Freyre deploys a curious imagistic vision. He engages the reader with a blend of scientist and humanist in his rendering of a transcendental world through poetry. Drawing upon the influences of T. E. Hulme, Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and Manuel Bandeira, this study focuses on the portrait of the sociologist as a man of poetic consciousness. As a poet of substance, Freyre deploys such ideas as sentimentality, nostalgia, memory, and sensibility, as he painstakingly struggles to transcend the limits of his pre-existing label as the miscegenation theorist in Poesia Reunida.