<em>Ciranda de Pedra</em>: declinazioni della statua viva nelle letterature di lingua portoghese
10.13125/2039-6597/5142
Tra gli studi di letteratura in lingua portoghese che si occupano di simulacro manca ancora una prospettiva diacronica su temi connessi alle sue possibili e molteplici rappresentazioni. Questo nostro incipiente studio è partito dalla necessità di verificare come, in zone culturali periferiche, contaminate e ibridate come lo sono quelle di ambito lusofono, la letteratura riproponga figure di simulacro e quale ruolo attribuisca loro, in relazione alla sfera dell’umano.Per rispondere, seppure parzialmente, a questo interrogativo, abbiamo concentrato la ricerca su una delle possibili concezioni di simulacro – la statua – e abbiamo cercato, nelle letterature di lingua portoghese (d’Europa, America e Africa), di individuare per ciascuna epoca (classicismo, romanticismo, modernismo e post-modernismo), testi che ne riformulassero il tema: Camões, Melo, Carvalhal, Sá-Carneiro, Clarice Lispector, Pepetela, Jaime Salazar Sampaio sono alcuni degli autori presi in esame, in questo iniziale viaggio tra le pietre vive.
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2039-6597
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Sofia Morabito
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Between
Simulacrum
<em>Ciranda de Pedra</em>: Manifestations of the Living Statue in Portuguese-language Literatures
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between
12
Essays
2022-11-24
2022-03-24
2022-11-30
2022-12-11
509-530
1
Sofia Morabito
2022/11/24
10.13125/2039-6597/5142
509
Università di Pisa
2039-6597
24
Simulacrum
530
urn:nbn:it:unica-28862
<em>Ciranda de Pedra</em>: Manifestations of the Living Statue in Portuguese-language Literatures
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/download/5142/5277
12
        Ciranda de pedra: Manifestations
             of the Living Statue in
        Portuguese-language Literatures

                      Valeria Tocco - Sofia Morabito

Abstract
      Among the studies of Portuguese-language literature dealing with
the simulacrum, there is still a lack of a diachronic perspective on the
issues associated with its many possible representations. Our incipient
study started from the need to verify how literature outlines figures of the
simulacrum in peripheral, contaminated and hybridized cultural areas
such as those of the Portuguese-speaking world, and what role it attributes
to them in relation to the sphere of the human. In order to answer these
questions, however partially, we have focused our research on one of the
possible conceptions of the simulacrum – the statue – and we have tried to
identify texts that reformulate this theme across various historical phases
(classical, Romanticism, Modernism, and Post-modernism) of Portuguese-
language literature (in particular, from Portugal, Brazil, Angola). Camões,
Melo, Carvalhal, Sá-Carneiro, Clarice Lispector, Pepetela, and Jaime Salazar
Sampaio are some of the authors examined in this initial journey through
living stones. What emerges is that, beyond the peculiar hybridizations
bearing on the conventional love theme, the axis on which the use of the
living statue in the Lusophone sphere most insistently pivots is that of social
criticism.

Keywords
     Lusophone literature; Living statue; Simulacrum




Between, vol. XII, n. 24 (novembre/November 2022)
issn: 2039-6597
doi: 10.13125/2039-6597/5142
Valeria Tocco - Sofia Morabito, Ciranda de pedra




  Ciranda de pedra: Manifestations of the
  Living Statue in Portuguese-language
               Literatures1

                       Valeria Tocco, Sofia Morabito



                               The Marble Dance
      When addressing the theme of the simulacrum in the Portu-
guese-speaking world, we noticed two apparently constant phenomena.
On the one hand, Portuguese-speaking critique seems to understand, iden-
tify, and analyze the concept of the simulacrum almost exclusively within
the fantasy genre and mode, or in connection with the sphere of the ghost,
the monster, and the double2. On the other hand, a diachronic overview
of Portuguese-language literatures shows that one motif connected to the
theme of the simulacrum – recurring in time, genre, and space – is that of
the living statue. In our incipient research we have so far identified about
ten texts belonging to different literary genres in which the statue – or an-
other anthropomorphic artefact – is precisely the object (an object actually


      1
        This article is the result of shared research and a constant dialogue be-
tween the two authors. However, the chapters The Marble Dance, Among puppets
and automata and A first conclusion? were specifically written by Valeria Tocco,
while Characteristcs, functions and orders of the simulacrum and Rethinking Pygma-
lion are by Sofia Morabito.
     2
        Brazilian critics, in particular, have focused on these aspects of the simu-
lacrum. A very active research group is Vertentes do insólito ficcional, connected to
the Universidade Estatual de Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and linked to the Associação
Nacional de Pós-graduação e Pesquisa em Letras e Linguística (ANPOLL). In
collaboration with Portuguese scholars, this group has also launched a digital
dictionary which, if does not include as yet an entry for ‘statue’ or ‘living statue’,
does contain entries under preparation on the subject (for instance, one is de-
dicated to Mérimés’s La Vénus d’Ille). The dictionary is available at http://www.
insolitoficcional.uerj.br/ (last accessed 21 March 2022).


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simulating, implying, or openly declaring to be a subject) that is reformu-
lated from a literary point of view across Portuguese-language literatures.
     Kenneth Gross starts his reflection on the motif of the living statue by
looking into selected texts for answers to the following questions:

           What, for instance, do such stories reveal about how we imagine
        the stillness of sculpture? What does that stillness become a figure of?
        What crisis does the animation of the unmoving statue thereby entail,
        what is lost or gained, transgressed or restored in that abandonment
        of stillness or silence? What does it mean after all for a statue to step
        down from a pedestal (assuming we are sure what a pedestal is), to
        enter a sphere of exchange and intention? What parable about our
        relation to other people, objects, words, or institutions might such a
        fantasy offer? (Gross 2019: 7).

      We too have therefore sought to interrogate a selection of texts by
attempting to answer these same questions. Our choice of an intertextu-
al reference for our title, i.e. Ciranda de pedra (1954), the famous novel by
Brazilian writer Lygia Fagundes Telles, is certainly no coincidence. The
‘marble dance’ of the title is a fountain at the manor house where part
of the action takes place, adorned with stone dwarfs holding hands in a
grotesque, motionless closed circle. A silent presence throughout the nov-
el, but with which the protagonist Virgínia tries to communicate because
she wants to be part of the ring dance at all costs, that ciranda of eternally
motionless and imperturbable human beings is nothing but a metaphor
and simulacrum of the family, seen as a magic circle that strangers are not
allowed to enter. This was a concept which post-war Brazilian society was
starting to question. The stillness that does not envisage any possibility of
coming to life is, in fact, a figure of a world heading for extinction.
      The aim of our work, which is still at an incipient stage, is precisely
to verify in what way the theme of the living statue is used in various
historical periods and by authors of different genres, in order to possi-
bly identify its constant and specific features, beyond the characteristics
already underlined by scholars such as Kenneth Gross (2109), Victor
Stoichita (2008), Gilles Deleuze (1994) or Jean Baudrillard (1981), among
others. The idea that prompted us was to «put the emphasis on ‘what the
texts tell us’»3 (Fusillo 2014: 18) and to understand why and how such


    3
      The translation of texts that are not quoted in the original language, unless
otherwise indicated, is by the translator.


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texts specifically introduce the statue (or a substitute for it). In short, we
wanted to check whether, to quote Gross, «minor cases have presented
major questions» (2019: XII) («minor», in our case, stands for literatures
that are certainly not minor as such, but in terms of the critics’ attention:
literatures that are peripheral and, as a rule, somewhat contaminated).
Our intention is consequently to ascertain whether, from that uncentred
perspective, «things whose meaning might have seemed obvious began
to seem not so obvious» (ibid.), and thus contribute to enriching the de-
bate on the ‘living statue’.
       For those who intend to focus on a constant theme or motif in the
Portuguese-speaking macrotext from a diachronic perspective, it is quite
natural to deal with the archetypal work of Lusophone literariness, name-
ly the epic poem Os Lusíadas (1572) by Luís de Camões. As for the theme
of the animated statue, there is actually an opposite and complementary
motif in the Lusíadas, i.e. that of flesh turned to stone – a stone that is in fact
still alive. When Vasco da Gama is about to round the Cape of Good Hope
(Capo Tormentoso), a horrifying rock monster appears to him: Adamastor
(V, 37-60). The giant was in love with the beautiful nymph Tethis, but she
did not return his love, and at the moment of the highest erotic climax, rep-
resented by the kiss they were about to exchange, he is turned into a rocky
mountain. Out of shame, he hides from prying eyes by taking refuge in the
remotest corner of Africa. He appears as a menacing cloud and, after telling
his dramatic story, the cloud dissolves into tears of rain. The elements that
Tabucchi (1973) had already identified in the construction of the dramatic
love affairs of literary giants turned to stone, such as Polyphemus besides
Adamastor, often play on the motif of the living statue seen through the
lens of the water/stone antinomy, resurfacing with different purposes and
in various ways depending on the texts. The same applies to the theme of
the kiss, which also recurs in many of the examples mentioned here.
       We have thus started from Camões, from flesh turned to stone in a
sentimental context, to follow a chronological path that also involves
one of the many figurations of the living statue, namely the fountain that
comes alive. An example of this, in classical Baroque literature, is offered
by Francisco Manuel de Melo, who, in one of his Apólogos dialogais (writ-
ten around 1657 and published posthumously in 1721) dedicated to the
Visita das fontes, gives voice to the Old Fountain and the New Fountain in
a conversation that sounds highly critical of the Portuguese society of the
time. Portuguese-language literature is also rich in humanized fountains
and statues whose connotations are linked more to social criticism than
to themes of an erotic or sentimental nature. Relevant examples of this are


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Jaime Salazar Sampaio’s play Nos jardins do Alto Maior (1962), the children’s
tale by the well-known poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen O rapaz de
bronze (1966), and the novel Yaka (1984) by the Angolan writer Pepetela. We
could not possibly overlook another classic of fantasy literature, namely
Álvaro de Carvalhal’s short story Os canibais (1868), in which the theme of
the simulacrum enters into a dialogue with the motifs of the living statue,
the automaton and the homunculus, undermining the very principle of
humanity. On the other hand, the play by modernist artist José de Almada
Negreiros, Antes de começar (1919), is dedicated to a world of marionettes
that come to life. But it is the dialogue with the myth of Pygmalion that
obviously also pervades Lusophone literatures: the short story Loucura
(1912) by Fernando Pessoa’s amigo de alma, Mário de Sá Carneiro, the lyric
poem Estátua (1920) by Camilo Pessanha and the short story O primeiro
beijo (1971) by Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian writer belonging to the so-
called third modernist generation, contribute to a peculiar reappraisal of
the Pygmalion effect dealt with by Stoichita (2008)4.

  Characteristics, functions and orders of the simulacrum
      Starting therefore from a few considerations by Stoichita (2008) and
Gross (2019), it is possible to define a set of common aspects that distin-
guish the simulacra dealt with in our research5. The characteristics that
have been identified mainly refer to the statue, but can also be applied to
other simulacra, such as Almada Negreiros’ marionettes or Álvaro de Car-
valhal’s automaton/monster.
      As a rule, simulacra belong to the category of the man-made artefact,
or the «made object», as Stoichita defines it (2008: 2). In our case – with the
exception of Adamastor (Lusíadas) and the Viscount of Aveleda (Os cani-
bais) –, they are true works of art simulating the appearance, behaviour and


    4
         Of course, other examples could be mentioned, such as, just to cite one
among many, the homoerotic variations on the living statue theme present in Ju-
dith Teixeira’s poetic production of the 1920s (A estátua, Ilusão). Cf. Teixeira 2015.
       5
         Although the studies by Asimov 1950, Baudrillard 1981, Deleuze 1994,
and Micali 2019 refer to other types of simulacra (automata, monsters, robots, ar-
tificial intelligence, etc.), they can nonetheless provide excellent food for thought
on the peculiarities of the living statue as well. As a matter of fact, they attempt
to throw light on the specific features of man-made artefacts that weave with
humans relations of similarity and dissimilarity, of identity and otherness, of
overpower and subordination, or of power and solidarity.


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functions of man. The simulacra examined here have human characteristics
even when they are not strictly anthropomorphic, such as the fountains in
the 17th-century text Visita das fontes by Francisco Manuel de Melo, which
in fact emulate the human being in other aspects, such as voice, thought,
language, character and personality.
     The essential trait characterizing the statue is corporeity. As Gross
points out, unlike other types of simulacra, statues

         occupy the space of bodies, compete with bodies for that space,
      share the same light and atmosphere; but they neither take things
      in (food, bullets, air, sounds, or signs) nor do they throw things out
      (words, blood, excrement, children). Hence, they are freed from
      whatever danger or power we might speculate on about such things.
      (Gross 2019: 17)

      The human being is fascinated by these stone bodies because they are
everlasting, unreachable, indefectible, immune to the passage of time, to
pain and earthly needs. As «surfaces whose secretiveness is satisfyingly
absolute» (ibid.), statues are a real challenge for man. And it is precisely
their being impenetrable that prompts human beings to project their inner-
most fantasies and dreams onto them, thus developing a libidinal attrac-
tion towards the inanimate object.
      In the history of literary simulacra, the relationship between the sim-
ulacrum and man often takes on the tones of the ‘oppressor-oppressed’,
‘master-servant’ dialectic. For this reason, there are many cases in which
living simulacra rebel against their creator or master at the moment they
come alive (Micali 2019: 136-148). However, this scenario is rather unusual
when it comes to the statue-simulacrum. There are very few literary exam-
ples of rebellious or violent statues, the most famous being arguably Push-
kin’s The Bronze Horseman (1837). This is because, in literary tradition, the
statue has always distinguished itself precisely by its inoffensive character.
Even the simulacra that populate the works selected here are harmless
and naïve, and appear subordinate to the will of man. Only the statues of
Nos jardins do Alto Maior represent an exception. These, however, do not
oppose their creator, as is usually the case in the tradition of rebellious
simulacra, but rather the situation in which they find themselves, i.e. an
allegory of Salazar’s dictatorship.
      Besides showing an autonomous and independent identity, simula-
cra are also endowed with specific functions and purposes that manifest
themselves throughout the narrative. From the texts we have selected, one


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can gather that the figure of the statue in Lusophone literature especially
works as a form of social criticism.
      In Melo’s work Visita das fontes we come across two fountains – the
Old Fountain in Rossio Square and the New Fountain, near the Royal Pal-
ace (Terreiro do Paço). A debate thus starts in which the statue of Apollo that
adorns the New Fountain and the soldier on guard (the only human being
in the story) are also involved. The Old Fountain informs the inexperienced
New Fountain about the state of affairs: in particular, about the economic,
political and social corruption vexing 17th-century Portugal.
      Mutatis mutandis, in Jaime Salazar Sampaio’s play Nos jardins do Alto
Maior (1962), the intent of social criticism is also explicit, so much so that
it was immediately banned by the censors and the script withdrawn from
circulation. The fountain statues in the Alto Maior garden – a ‘he’ (Ele) and
a ‘she’ (Ela) – might be cast as simulacra of the Portuguese citizens under
Salazar’s dictatorship, during which censorship silenced any attempt to
speak out. It is no coincidence that, when the two statues attempt to reb-
el against their condition of subalternity and segregation by addressing
their criticism directly to the public (in metatheatrical tones reminiscent of
Pirandello’s characters), they are subjected to brainwashing, a «lavagem
completa» (Sampaio 1968: 77) by the so-called Lavadores (washers) and im-
mediately reduced to silence.
      If Os canibais expresses parodic criticism of all the main genres and
topoi of late-Romantic literature, in Yaka, on the other hand, the political
value of the statue, which bears witness to the injustices and atrocities of
Portuguese colonization in Africa, is markedly evident.
      Finally, albeit veiled, criticism of contemporary society can also be
noticed in Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen’s children’s story, O rapaz de
bronze. The story is set in the garden of a Portuguese quinta. At night, when
no human being is able see, all the creatures in the garden come to life. The
statue of the bronze boy dominates the flowers in the garden, allegorically
representing mid-20th-century Portuguese society, with all its virtues and
faults, its vanities and fancies. As the story unfolds, only the gardener’s
daughter, a five-year-old girl, can interact with these objects coming alive.
If, at the beginning, a beautiful friendship develops between the little girl
and the bronze boy, at the end, after a decade has passed, a relationship
blossoms between the two that suggests something more.
      This other genre, featuring the love affair between man and statue
– the so-called ‘agalmatophilia’, which has a centuries-old tradition in lit-
erary history – includes stories that revive the myth of Pygmalion.
      Within our corpus it is possible to identify two different orders of


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simulacral statues. The first is related to animated statues, whose main
character does not consist in ‘resemblance’, but in ‘existence’ (Deleuze
1994). These stone (or bronze) simulacra are transformed from inanimate
objects into subjects that speak, think, move, and interact with the other
characters in the story. Almada Negreiros’ already mentioned marionettes
should also be included in this group, along with Álvaro de Carvalhal’s
automaton/monster.
     The second order consists of inanimate statues. In this case, the inan-
imate object is perceived as a simulacrum by the human being who inter-
acts with it. On the one hand, the inanimate simulacrum can become the
object of desire, while on the other it might prove a constant presence, a
travelling companion, a silent witness.

                            Rethinking Pygmalion
      According to Stoichita, the simulacrum has a «veritable founding
myth - the myth of Pygmalion - and its history has been long and complex»
(Stoichita 2008: 3). The story of the Cypriot sculptor who falls in love with
his work of art, moulded according to his own canon of beauty and femi-
ninity, represents the archetype of the simulacrum in Western culture. The
work of art – in this case the ivory statue, the simulacrum of the idealized
love object – is not only free from all the imperfections of phenomenal
reality: it is also so credible and perfect that it goes beyond reality and
ultimately overshadows it.
      In the history of Portuguese-language literature, we find several
echoes of Ovid’s myth. Mário de Sá-Carneiro, for instance, offers a rather
faithful reformulation of it in Loucura (at least in the first half of the story).
Like Pygmalion, the protagonist of Loucura, Raul Vilar, rejects women, love
and marriage, and dedicates his life to sculpture. Unlike the Cypriot artist,
however, Raul does not fall in love with a single statue, but with all his cre-
ations, which appear to satisfy him emotionally and sexually. The allusion
to myth is particularly evident in a passage where the protagonist speaks
to his best friend (the narrator of the story):

         You fool... Women?... What for? Don’t I have my statues, don’t I
      have marble? You stupid literati, when you describe the body of an
      ideal woman, you say: ‘her shapely, sinewy legs were two columns
      of hard marble; her bosom, pure alabaster’. Yes, despite your great
      imbecility, you understand that the supreme beauty of the flesh is
      to look like stone... Now I have stone; why would I want flesh, you



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        fool? And as he said this, he caressed the breasts of a beautiful Greek
        dancer. (Sá-Carneiro 2013: 17)

     Raul escapes from reality by taking refuge in an idealized world of
his own creation. The beauty of the stone simulacra (instead of an ivory
simulacrum, as was the case with Pygmalion) surpasses that of any real
woman in the flesh. Pervaded by a sense of all-powerfulness, the protag-
onist convinces himself that he has given life to his creations: «my statues
are not like other statues, [...] they have life... [...] Instead of making flesh
with my flesh, I make life with my hands; that is, with my brain, which
guides them. I make life; time passes over my statues, it does not pass over
me...» (ibid.: 16). The statues fulfil, for the sculptor, a function that is not
very distant from that of the portrait in relation to Dorian Gray: they are a
sort of concrete and tangible double through which Raul is able to exorcise
the passage of time recorded in his own body.
     The humanization of the object, i.e. the protagonist’s tendency to re-
gard his simulacra as real living beings, entails, as if by compensation, a si-
multaneous objectification of the human. During the story, Raul meets and
marries a real woman, Marcela. However, as he is unable to establish any
kind of loving relationship, he immediately treats his wife as if she were
one of his simulacra: «the statue Raul was currently chiselling was Marce-
la. He was perfecting her out of love and – without thinking of the stone –
was now thinking only of her flesh; burning, throbbing marble» (ibid.: 40).
Slowly, the woman’s body is stripped of its uniqueness and transformed
into a work of art to be exhibited, so that everyone can admire what he calls
his «masterpiece» (ibid.: 41). Raul, now convinced that his wife is a living
statue to be chiselled and shaped to his liking, even goes so far as to hurt
her physically, causing bruises all over her body6. The story ends with the
protagonist who, terrified by the inevitable passing of time and in the grip
of a megalomaniac delirium, attacks Marcela with acid in order to turn her
into a repulsive, deformed monster to be loved by him only. That is to say,
a sort of simulacrum immune to time and death, or, as Silva (2003: 136) de-
fines it, an «immortal double». Luckily, Marcela manages to save herself,
while Raul, by now insane, persuades himself that the only solution to face
the threat of time is death. This leads him to commit suicide.
     Clarice Lispector’s short story O primeiro beijo also revives the myth


    6
      The protagonist himself will cry out to his narrator friend: «it is I who
formed, who gave fire... life to this body» (Sá-Carneiro 2013: 42).


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of Pygmalion. In this case, however, the protagonist seems more like an
‘unaware Pygmalion’. O primeiro beijo, in fact, tells the story of a teenager
who, in an entirely involuntary and innocent manner, develops a libidinal
attraction towards a statue in the likeness of a woman.
      The story begins with the protagonist telling his girlfriend about the
experience of his first kiss – or, rather, what he experienced as a first kiss.
During a school trip, the boy begins to feel unbearably thirsty. When the
coach finally stops, he senses that «in an unexpected curve of the road, be-
tween bushes, there was… a fountain from which a trickle of the dreamed-of
water was gushing» (Lispector 2015). The boy hurries up and immediately
rushes to the fountain, anticipating his classmates. Once he has quenched
his thirst, he opens his eyes and, right next to his face, he sees the «two eyes
of the statue staring at him». He then realizes that the orifice from which he
had been drinking was actually the mouth of a statue of a naked woman:

             And then he knew that he had pressed his mouth to the mouth of
          the stone statue of the woman. Life had sprung forth from that mouth,
          from one mouth to another. Instinctively, and confused because of his
          innocence, he felt intrigued: but it isn’t from a woman that the life-
          giving liquid comes, the liquid germinator of life... He looked at the
          naked statue. He had kissed her. (Ibid.)

      After realizing that he had (albeit unintentionally) given his first kiss,
the boy’s body felt a tremor that «started deep inside him» (ibid.) and took
hold of his body «bursting through his face like a burning ember» (ibid.).
After all, never before had he touched a woman’s lips7.
        Following in the footsteps of Heinrich Heine’s Florentine Nights
(1836), also in this story «the moving water lends a kind of animation to
the stone, provides a sense of something moving through it, something it
can pass on to others, giving the stone breath, spirit, even speech» (Gross
2019: XII). In O primeiro beijo, the water animates the statue and the latter,
in turn, animates the boy. Life flows from one mouth to the other through a
first kiss that marks the passage into adulthood. The inexperienced adoles-
cent, after ‘kissing’ the statue, unconsciously develops a strong sexual urge


      7
       In Ovid’s myth, on the other hand, it is the statue that blushes when Pyg-
malion kisses it (vv. 290-295): «Then indeed the Paphian hero thanked Venus
again and again and pressed his lips to lips that were real al last. The girl felt the
kisses and blushed, and when she shyly raised her eyes, the first thing she saw
was her lover» (Ovid 2001: 171).


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towards the inanimate object which, at the end of the story, culminates into
an orgasm: «until, springing from the depths of his being, the truth gushed
from a hidden source within him. This at once filled him with fear and then
also with a pride he had never felt before: he… He had become a man»
(Lispector 2015).
      A different case is that of the poem Estátua, composed at the end of
the 19th century (but not published until 1920, in the collection Clepsidra) by
the symbolist poet Camilo Pessanha, where the Pygmalion myth is totally
overcome. In this composition, the lyric self sings of the disillusionment
regarding his love for the statue of a woman that has always been, and
will always remain, inanimate and cold. The speaking I declares himself
tired of trying to understand the secret behind those colourless eyes («sem
cor», v. 2). He is tired of living what has now become an obsession, with
fear gripping him («cheio de medo», v. 8.) during sleepless nights. He now
knows that his ardent kiss («ardente», v. 9) will never warm that half-open,
icy lip («Desse entreaberto lábio gelado», v. 11). Indeed, even his own kiss
has now cooled due to that lifeless marble.
       The scene described by Camilo Pessanha seems to be telling another
version of Pygmalion’s story, as if it were a kind of answer to the momen-
tous ‘what if’ question. What would have happened to Pygmalion if the
goddess Venus had not heard his prayers and had not given life to the stat-
ue? Would the sculptor have continued to love his creation, or would he
eventually have grown weary of this one-sided love affair? In Pessanha’s
version, the lyric self – which might conceal the identity of Pygmalion –
woke up from that illusion and gave up his dream of love. The simulacrum
no longer represents the idealized object of love, but is seen for what it is: a
lifeless, impenetrable statue, as placid as a quiet high sea («como um péla-
go quieto», v. 14) and, at the same time, as stern as a closed tomb («como
um túmulo fechado», v. 13).
      As we mentioned above, inanimate statues can also have a testimonial
or documentary function. This is the case of Yaka, a sacred statuette with
half-human, half-animal features, who silently attends all the events that
involve a family of Portuguese settlers in Angola. In Pepetela’s novel, the
story of the Semedo family is intertwined with Angolan political, economic
and social history, from the end of the 19th century until independence from
Portugal (1875-1975). Right from the start – as the author himself reveals in
the epigraph – it is clear that the real protagonist of the story is the statue:

        But this book is not about them, only about a statue. And the statue
     is pure fiction. Yaka statuary being so rich, it could have existed. But


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          it did not. By chance. Hence the need to create it, as myth recreated.
          Because only myths have reality. And as in myths, myths create
          themselves, by speaking. (Pepetela 1984: 6)

     The novel is divided into five chapters that correspond to the various
parts of the simulacrum’s body, associated with key historical moments in
Angolan existence and resistance on its way to independence: The Mouth
(1890/1904); The Eyes (1917); The Heart (1940/41); The Sex (1961); and The Legs
(1975)8. Therefore, Yaka allegorically represents Angola, its voice, history,
and culture. It embodies the spirit of Angolan identity becoming stronger
day by day and resisting the imperialistic sway of the Portuguese.
       The story begins in 1890 with the birth of the protagonist, Alexandre
Semedo, the son of Portuguese Óscar Semedo, and ends with his death
in 1975, a few days before independence. From the very first pages of the
novel, the protagonist describes his strong bond with the statue:

              My father won that yaka statue by means of gambling. He already
          had it in Capangombe when he got married. My mother always
          thought it was hideous, with these transparent marble eyes and three
          parallel stripes, white, black and red. Look, it’s almost a metre tall and
          has a man’s body, but its face is strange, sometimes human looking,
          sometimes animal. [...] I ended up learning that it is yaka, from a people
          living near the northern border. How such a northern statue ended
          up in Moçâmedes or Capangombe, far to the South, is a mystery that
          only he can explain. I hope he might tell me, but he does not. All my
          life I have been trying to talk with him; when I was a boy, he was my
          confidant, then I gave up, convinced that he would not yield, and later
          on I insisted again. He changes, he always changes, he speaks with
          his marble eyes. I feel more and more as if he is speaking to me. But I
          don’t understand. (Pepetela 1984: 21-22)

     Alexandre Semedo establishes a love-hate relationship with Yaka. On
the one hand, he feels attracted to the simulacrum, sees him as a confidant,


      8
       As Mariana Sousa Dias explains, the parts of Yaka’s body metaphorically
represent the body of the nascent nation: the mouth stands for speech, which in
Angolan culture gives rise to everything; the eyes bear witness to the sufferings
of the Angolan people; the heart symbolizes the feeling of consciousness and
affirmation of nationality; the sex alludes to the fertilization that began with the
armed struggles for liberation and, finally, the feet represent the possibility for
Angola to walk free and independent (Dias 2012: 60-61).


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a member of the family; on the other, he is annoyed and tormented by his
constant, silent presence. He knows that the statue wants to communicate
a message to him, but he cannot understand what.
      Throughout the narrative, the protagonist keeps on trying to question
the statue (sometimes in friendly, sometimes in accusatory tones), estab-
lishing with the inanimate object what might be called a ‘one-voice dia-
logue’. Yaka, in fact, will never speak explicitly except through the words
of Alexandre Semedo, who, throughout his life, will try to interpret what
is concealed behind those ‘transparent glass eyes’: «Yaka looks at me. No,
his gaze pierces me only to contemplate something far away, maybe in the
past or the future. I feel he is sending me a message. [...] Did the message
come from the depths of his history?» (ibid.: 128).
      By attempting to question the statue and his silence, Alexandre Seme-
do interrogates himself and the reality around him, slowly discovering his
‘being Angolan’. Indeed, as Gross states, «the attempt to grant a statue an
apprehending ear, a voice, even a motivated silence of its own, can become
an occasion to redream the possibilities of speech» (Gross 2019: 148). The
possibility of the unspoken or denied word is linked to a sense of hope:
Yaka will one day be able to recount all that must not be forgotten, the
hidden truth of a country that has lived through and endured reality and
colonial war, but is now ready for a new future. Yaka’s silence is the silence
of the Angolan national identity, now eager to make its voice heard.
      Only a member of the fourth generation of the Semedo family can
immediately grasp the meaning of the simulacrum. This member is Al-
exandre’s grandson, Ulysses Semedo, who will show him that Yaka ac-
tually personifies a ridiculed colonist. The statuette, however, as Ulysses
explains, symbolizes not only a «satire of colonialism» (Pepetela 1984: 294-
296), but also the «understanding between men» (ibid.), no matter how dif-
ferent from one another they might be. The protagonist, therefore, realizes
why he has never been able to interpret the statue’s gaze and silence: Yaka
does not address everyone, but only those whom Alexandre himself calls
the «chosen ones» (ibid.). Only the new generations of Angolans, like the
one to which Ulysses belongs, can fully understand the message carried
by the statue: that of a new Angola formed by the union of many different
peoples fighting together against the Portuguese enemy.
      Moments before his death, now freed from colonialist codes and aware
of the need to transform Angolan social reality, Alexandre Semedo finally
hears, for the first and last time, Yaka’s voice: «the statue speaks through
his eyes and the smile is no longer mocking and now speaks tenderly also
through his lips. […] ‘Your generation will be the last,’ says the yaka statue


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again. ‘I have told you all your life to prepare yourself. And only now do
you understand’» (ibid.: 301).
     The simulacrum then takes the floor in the epilogue, addressing the
reader directly in order to express the concern that afflicts him:

         I can now close these transparent eyes that have seen so much. My
      creation is there in torrents of hope, the one announced has arrived.
      Can I then lose my balance and fall off the pedestal scattered in a
      thousand pieces, my mouth to one side, my eyes to the sea, my heart
      in the bowels of the earth, sex to the North and my legs to the South?
      Or is it perhaps better to wait a little longer? (Ibid.: 302)

      Yaka fears that the national situation after independence might not
correspond to the hoped-for future. He does not know whether he will be
able to close his eyes, come down from his pedestal and scatter his body
parts (the same ones referred to in the chapter’s titles) all over the nation –
thus becoming one with him –, or whether it will be better to wait and see
what will happen to his country. After 1975, in fact, the feeling of a terrible
civil war was already in the air: it would break out shortly thereafter, dev-
astating Angola up to 2002.

                      Among puppets and automata
      As for other animated simulacra – not exactly statues, but anthropo-
morphic figures in any case – we might refer to automata as well as mar-
ionettes.
      When Álvaro de Carvalhal died at a very early age (he was only 24),
he already had to his credit several short stories that would go down in lit-
erary history as the most accomplished examples of ‘fantasy’ narrative. His
best-known work (which also inspired renowned filmmaker Manoel de
Oliveira) is Os canibais. Classified as a fantastic short story – even though it
does not show any of the distinguishing traits of the fantastic, at least as far
as Todorov’s perspective is concerned –, it offers a series of elements that
constitute a sort of repertoire of interesting motifs. There, the automaton,
the statue, the deformed being, the semi-human or the simulation of the
human are all present. In short, Carvalhal uses a plethora of motifs that can
be traced back to the theme under consideration in this paper, in a way that
critically revises tradition by means of a parodic approach. Indeed, this
short story could be read as a refined parody of Romanticism’s stylistic and
thematic ingredients. The protagonist is a Viscount who is gradually intro-


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duced through alienating elements: he is described as elegant, charming,
and mysterious, but at the same time we are told that his gait is mechani-
cal, that at the touch of his hand one feels the hardness of granite, and that
his body is hieratic and statuesque. Throughout the story, this character is
seemingly portrayed with all the characteristics of the human: he possess-
es a body, limbs, a voice; he shows empathy and sensitivity; he exudes a
Don-Juanesque charm9; he is in love with a woman, Margarida, whom he
eventually marries despite the resistance of his previous fiancé, João, but
also against the wishes of her father and brothers. At the same time, one
easily gathers clues about his not being human, but rather a figure close
to a statue, so much so that at one point the narrator likens the Viscount to
the Convidado de piedra. At the moment of the final revelation, prompted by
Margarida’s question «Who are you? Who will you ever be?», he replies «I
am not a man», and then dramatically admits to being «A statue!» (Carva-
lhal 2004: 251). In the end, therefore, it turns out that the protagonist is not
human. Or, rather, he might be said to be and not to be such, a muddled
situation which undermines the very concepts of humanity, authenticity
and the ontological status of the protagonist. The Viscount’s figuration
belongs, at least in part, to that order of simulacra based on ‘counterfeit’,
which Micali, reinterpreting Baudrillard’s categories, mainly compares to
«the 18th century automata, which were a spectacular counterfeit of Man,
and whose ideal consisted in the utmost similarity, in being mistaken for
true people» (Micali 2019: 123). When the Viscount takes off his gloves, he
displays ivory hands, and the spring mechanism that has been eliciting his
movements falls apart:

           Upon the armchair fell a mutilated, deformed, monstrous body.
        Legs, arms, the Viscount’s own teeth, white as beautiful strings of
        pearls, fell onto the fuzzy Turkish rugs and were lost in the folds of
        his robe de chambre, which had naturally slipped off his shoulders.
        (Carvalhal 2004: 251-252)

      The prostheses within which the «stupendous abortion» is hidden
(ibid.: 252) boil down to a material construction, whose limits and potential
depend precisely on the circumstances in which they were manufactured.
This is exactly the protagonist’s weakness: what is described as his body is


    9
      The myth of Don Juan is evoked several times throughout the story, al-
though it is always, after all, a ‘reverse’ use of this myth (Tocco 2016).


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the source and condition of his existence. The removal of the outer shell be-
comes the iconic moment of the story and is represented as a tragic event.
When he reveals himself for what he is, and Margarida refuses to accept
his diversity, the putative automaton loses its place in the world. When
Margarida realizes that she has failed to fathom out the machine, and be-
cause she does not accept this inhuman, deformed, and different being, she
loses her centre and her reason to live, to the point that she will take her
life. The Viscount is to commit suicide too: he throws himself on the floor,
rolls over the live coals on the hearth and is roasted to death. And then
Margarida’s father and brothers (the cannibals of the title) have that chunk
of flesh they did not recognize as human for breakfast, this being another
theme, another motif within the great parody conveyed by Os canibais.
      Another simulacrum in human form, which is not really a statue, can
be found in the play Antes de começar by modernist poet José de Almada
Negreiros. Written around 1919, performed in 1949 and not published until
1956, the text stages two bonecos (puppets, marionettes) just before the cur-
tain rises. The two protagonist puppets (a male and a female) stand on the
empty stage of a theatre and eventually come to life, stand up, speak, and
move. They do not let themselves be seen by humans, nor do they interact
with them; on the contrary, they are afraid (especially the female) of being
discovered. Thus, in the dark freedom offered by the closed curtain, they
can finally talk to each other and express their thoughts about the world
and interpersonal relationships. The female puppet’s speech is particularly
interesting, because it introduces and indulges in the theme of doubles or
mirroring; she talks about herself and the woman who manufactured her.
The following couple of lines are worth quoting:

         - ...You are right, all too often do I forget that I am a puppet and
      start thinking exactly as if I were a girl. (Negreiros 2017: 17)

         - She copied herself exactly on me!... (Negreiros 2017: 23)

     To better appreciate the work of this eclectic Portuguese artist (who,
notably, was not only a poet, a novelist and a playwright, but also a dancer,
and mainly a plastic artist), it is necessary to underline that he dedicated
himself to theatre as a ‘total’ performance (suffice it to recall the Manifesto
anti-Dantas of 1916), and that he was also deeply interested in Fernando
Pessoa’s so-called ‘static theatre’, i.e. a theatre without action, a theatre of
thought, feeling and speech. On the other hand, it also worth stressing
that puppet theatre had contributed to dramaturgic development in Por-


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tugal. If we consider that the most highly regarded author on the 18th-cen-
tury Portuguese-speaking scene was António José da Silva, known as O
Judeu (the Jew), who wrote several plays specifically involving puppets,
we can understand the special importance that this genre had in the coun-
try, then and later on, and not only at a popular level. Similarly, Antes de
começar can be related to Hoffman’s fairy tale The Nutcracker (Nußknacker
und Mausekönig, 1816), although in this case it is not the toys that come to
life when humans are not looking, but puppets («characters human and
inhuman, close to objects», Gross 2011: 2). At a time when Almada was
devoting special attention to artistic and playful activities to be carried out
with his young friends from the Clube das cinco cores (the five-colour club)
– such as choreographies based on fairy tales for which he also created the
costumes –, Hoffmann’s text or the ballet it inspired may have acted as an
intertext or a subtext for this play10 .
      If, in the context of the theme of the living statue, the opposition
between real and unreal, mobile and immobile is a structuring motif, in
this case, since we are faced with puppets that are also theatre actors, the
perspective also shifts to the dichotomy between passivity and activity.
Moreover, as far as puppet theatre is specifically concerned, the nature of
the movements of this human artefact has been debated since Kleist’s time
(1992):

        It is both more material and more spiritual at once, an Edenic
     creature, in fact, its stories bound to an unknown innocence and
     simplicity of means. (Gross 2011: 63).

     And it is precisely this aspect of spirituality and morality that Almada
will emphasize in his bonecos. The last words of the male puppet will be,
not surprisingly:

        It is only those who do not know how to listen to the heart who do
     not understand it... It is always striking the hour that we are waiting
     for... that hour which exists beyond all wisdom... and which has the
     most simple form of a natural heart!... (Negreiros 2017: 31)


    10
       The group comprised young amateur dancers from Lisbon’s high so-
ciety, with whom they organized performances to raise funds for the ‘war god-
mothers’. One of these shows was entitled O sonho do estatuário (1918) and told of
a character who, having fallen asleep in a garden, dreams of awakening all the
decorative statues in order to dance with them (Ferreira 2014).


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                               A first conclusion?
      Let us return to some of Gross’s questions which have been developed
within the confines of our research: what does the stillness of the statue be-
come a figure of? What crisis does the animation of the statue entail? What
does it mean for the statue to step down from its pedestal? Is it possible to
give a coherent and organic answer at the end of this journey?
      One can perhaps generically conclude that in Portuguese-language
literature, apart from the peculiar hybridizations relating to the love-theme
conventions, the axis on which the use of the living statue pivots is that of
criticism, especially social criticism.
      If Adamastor is turned to stone to punish his male arrogance (like
the Propoetides, the blasphemous prostitutes, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in
the episode immediately preceding the story of Pygmalion), the figure of
the living statue in other texts is more often used as a key to denounce the
distortions of society, as in Visita das fontes, in Jardim do Alto Maior, and in
Rapaz de bronze. After all, even in Yaka, the use of the statue-witness is a
harbinger of criticism and denunciation of the imperialist narrative con-
cerning colonialism in Africa. On the other hand, literary rather than social
criticism can be found in the parody informing Os canibais. Even the refor-
mulation of the Pygmalion myth, however, is never an end in itself: Estátua
represents its rejection; O primeiro beijo conceives it in terms of unconscious
adolescent erotic urges; Loucura, as we have seen, also introduces the theme
of the double, and the text stresses the impossibility of establishing a tra-
ditional relationship while simultaneously expanding on the fear of death.
We also find the theme of the double in the play Antes de começar, in which
the boneco artefact is constructed in the image and likeness of its creator.
      Although science fiction does not play a major role in Portuguese-lan-
guage literature or, in any case, the robotic or artificial simulacrum does
not appear as a prominent protagonist in it, on the other hand, the living
statue, in the cases that we have analyzed, has been and continues to be a
prolific motif in almost all literary genres – novel, poetry, and drama.




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                                     The authors
      Valeria Tocco

     Valeria Tocco is Full Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Literature
at the University of Pisa. She has worked on Portuguese literature from
the 16th-17th centuries (Palacian poetry, sapiential literature, sentimental
novella, Petrarchism, Camões) to the 20th century (Eça de Queirós, early
and late Modernism, Pessoa, Almada Negreiros, post-modern novel). She
has devoted herself to translation (Pessoa, Almada Negreiros, Gil Vicente,
Melo), and to translation and linguistic studies. She is the author, among
others, of the annotated edition of the epic poem Os Lusíadas (Milan, 2001)
and the Breve storia della letteratura portoghese dalle origini ai giorni nostri
(Rome, 2011).

      Email: valeria.tocco@unipi.it

      Sofia Morabito

      A PhD student in Portuguese and Brazilian Literature, Sofia Morabito
has worked on themes of Portuguese (Ruben A., Sophia de Mello Breyner,
etc.), Brazilian (Guimarães Rosa) and African (Pepetela) contemporary lit-
erature. She is also interested in translation, a field in which she won the
first Claris Appiani Prize 2019 for literary translation for her version of
Fidalgo Aprendiz, conducted with Valeria Tocco. She is currently a research
fellow at the University of Pisa with a project on Castilian translations of


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the Imagem da vida cristã (1563 and 1572) by Frei Heitor Pinto.

     Email: sm.sofiamorabito@gmail.com



                               The article
     Date sent: 31/03/2022
     Date accepted: 31/07/2022
     Date published: 30/11/2022



                       How to cite this article
     Tocco, Valeria - Morabito, Sofia, “Ciranda de pedra: Manifestations of
the Living Statue in Portuguese-language Literatures”, Entering the Sim-
ulacra World, Eds. A. Ghezzani - L. Giovannelli - F. Rossi - C. Savettieri,
Between, XII.24 (2022): 509-529, www.betweenjournal.it




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