Song of Exile

"In this compelling and carefully crafted study, Joshua Enslen chronicles the allure and cultural impact of Brazil's most popular and imitated poem. Penned in Coimbra, Portugal, in 1843 by the Brazilian student Antônio Gonçalves Dias, 'Song of Exile' inspired generations of writers to reimagine the nation's landscape and history. References to the iconic poem abound in Brazilian popular culture. Its verses appear in Brazil's national anthem and in the title of an award-winning carnival song, or samba-enredo. The poem's imagery and words also have served political ends during the First Republic (1889–1930), the Getúlio Vargas era (1930–1945), and the military dictatorship (1964–1985). More recently, the work was rewritten as a popular chant heard in the streets (and echoed on Twitter) during Brazil's 2018 presidential election.

"Born in nostalgia and longing, 'Song of Exile' idealized Brazil as an Edenic garden of lush vegetation, starry skies, and singing thrushes. The poem itself offered fertile ground for subsequent writers to imitate, rework, or question Gonçalves Dias's utopic representation. Many rewritings of his poem—or intertexts—highlight Brazil's failings and reference corruption, violence, systemic racism, inequality, and environmental atrocities.

"Using an innovative mix of algorithmic analysis and close reading of five hundred selected intertexts published between 1847 and 2015, Enslen meticulously maps keywords and phrasings that reappear in those publications and thereby inform Brazilian national identity. This book gracefully illustrates how, for nearly two centuries, 'Song of Exile' has served as a kind of connective tissue joining Brazil's past with its present, and moments of disappointment with renewed optimism." —Luciana Namorato, Associate Professor, Indiana University