Brazil
Foreign Songs
Reviews

If you want to get a taste of Brazilian emotion and pride, you would do well to hear the Brazilian National Anthem, reading and understanding the context and lyrics before singing along. Its structure, history, and language make it one of the most complex and unique national anthems in the world.

The lyrics were written in 1909 by Joaquim Osório Duque Estrada, a professor, poet, and literary critic. Francisco Manuel da Silva had composed the music in 1831. Born in 1795, in Rio de Janeiro, he devoted himself to music since childhood and went on to found both the Sociedade Beneficente Musical and the Conservatório de Música de Rio de Janeiro. His composition was popular throughout the 1800s and it was finally formalized as the country’s national anthem in 1890. In the decades before and after this date, several lyrics were proposed, but none took hold with the public and the authorities. It was not until 1922 that President Epitácio Pessoa finally and officially adopted Estrada’s lyrics.

"Its structure, history, and language make it one of the most complex and unique national anthems in the world."

The anthem’s style is Parnassian, a poetic movement that originated in Paris during the 19th century. Its writing structure privileges the poetic meter, affecting the clarity of the message, so that even native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese have trouble understanding it. There are frequent inversions of word order and the vocabulary is full of technical preciosity, common techniques of academic professors during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This contributes to the artistic beauty and form of the anthem. For example, the following lines are written in indirect speech: “Se o penhor dessa igualdade/ Conseguimos conquistar com braço forte/ Em teu seio, ó liberdade/ Desafia o nosso peito a própria morte!” (If the pledge of this equality/ We have conquered with a strong arm/ In your bosom, oh freedom/ Our chest defies the very death!) In this stanza, the subject “nosso peito” (our chest) appears only in the fourth verse. A more conventional word order, in direct speech, would be much easier to understand: “O nosso peito desafia a própria morte, em teu seio, ó liberdade, se conseguimos conquistar o penhor dessa igualdade com braço forte” (Our chest defies the very death, in your bosom, oh freedom, if we have conquered the pledge of this equality with a strong arm). Notice the use of similar metaphors, like “desafia o nosso peito” (our chest defies) and "em teu seio" (in your bosom), and metonyms, like “com braço forte” (a strong arm).

The exacerbated patriotism found throughout the anthem was common during the Romantic period, when poets and patriots glorified the beauty of Brazil and its people. Duque Estrada employs many figures of speech to decorate his lyrics and evoke the greatness of Brazil, calling it “Ó Pátria amada” (beloved homeland), “Gigante pela própria natureza” (gigantic by its own nature), “impávido colosso” (intrepid colossus), “Terra adorada” (adored land), and “florão da América” (America’s ornament). There are many other figures of speech, which play a similar role to the above: “Brasil, um sonho intenso, um raio vívido, /De amor e de esperança à terra desce, / Se em teu formoso céu, risonho e límpido/ A imagem do Cruzeiro resplandece” (Brazil, an intense dream, a lively ray/ Of love and hope comes down to earth,/ If in your beauteous, laughing and limpid sky/ The image of the Cross glows).

Duque Estrada also uses intertextuality, referencing various verses by Romantic poet Gonçalvez Dias, particularly his poem “Canção do Exílio” (The Song of Exile): "Nosso céu tem mais estrelas, / Nossas várzeas têm mais flores, / Nossos bosques têm mais vida, / Nossa vida mais amores" (We have fields more full of flowers/ and a starrier sky above/ we have woods more full of life/ and a life more full of love). In these verses, Dias expresses “saudade,” an untranslatable word for “missing someone or something,” and “nostalgia.” He recalls the beauty and joy of his homeland, contrasting it to Portugal, where he has been exiled. Duque Estrada, in his anthem, cites “The Song of Exile” in the following verses: “Do que a terra mais garrida/ Teus risonhos, lindos campos têm mais flores/ ‘Nossos bosques têm mais vida,’/ ‘Nossa vida’ no teu seio ‘mais amores.’”