Aesthetic and ephemerality
In its two published issues, of February and April 1939, Altitude was presented as a literary and artistic bulletin, with no explicit editorial program, but, rather, as a record and repository of narratives, poems, and critical texts by some of the foremost authors in the new neorealist movement.
The periodical, which was based at the Cochofel family residence, thus fulfilled the role of “our literary magazine”, as stated by Jorge Domingues, one of the main editors of O Diabo, in a letter to Manuel de Azevedo, Sol Nascente’s secretary, in the general framework of periodical publications designed for a generation of readers among whom both titles were already significantly popular.
By limiting itself to the literary and artistic fields, Altitude proved to be a peculiar magazine within the cultural and political movement of which it was a part. On the one hand, the doctrinal discourse that characterized the vehement novelty of the new humanism found itself restricted to inherently literary, artistic, and critical published references. On the other hand, aesthetic considerations received, in its pages, unusual relevance, when the effort to establish socially compromised literature from the confrontation with authors who were considered both formalists and subjectivists was prominent. The articles by António Ramos de Almeida, the future author of A Arte e a Vida, one of the few book manifestos written by the young authors, eloquently illustrate this second trait: Almada Negreiros is presented as “a great national artist”, Fernando Pessoa is described as “great”, and even the presencista movement is seen “as much more fruitful than might seem at first and those not blinded by sectarianism will soon understand why”.
Despite its many implicit and undefined references, Fernando Lopes Graça's correspondence to João José Cochofel seems to indicate, similarly to what had happened with Cadernos da Juventude, the clearly intentional and shared nature of this general orientation; in fact, both intellectuals will later be criticized for it, during the polemic among neo-realists that took place in the early ‘50s.
The specificity of a literary magazine, common in its terms but uncommon among its authors, did not fail, however, to bring together the most representative writers of the new realist literati. Joaquim Namorado opened the periodical with a caricatural narrative of a marriage of convenience between a ruined aristocrat and an atavistic and prosperous wholesaler, which illustrates decadence and misfortune among the owning classes. Afonso Ribeiro contrasted the misery, illness, and suffering of a poor peasant couple with the lives of wealthy landowners, going so far as to suggest that the land may no longer be owned. Mário Dionísio, Manuel da Fonseca, Carlos de Oliveira, Fernando Namora, and Augusto do Santos Abranches published poems, among which “Não”, by the first of these authors, stands out.
Along with markedly social literary production, the literary and artistic bulletin also offers poetry and prose of romantic and nondescript lyricism that reveal the intimate suffering of their authors.
In the magazine’s pages, we also find art criticism, from cinema to music, including praise for the first Gil Vicente productions of the Teatro dos Estudantes Universitários de Coimbra group.
Although Altitude's literary and artistic features may have contributed to its ephemeral nature, since the confrontation of earlier literary schools and even social thought by these young writers played a decisive role in asserting their Marxist culture, it is also certain that its authors were the same who ensured the publication of Sol Nascente, which Jorge Domingues, in the aforementioned letter, elevated to the priority status of “journalistic manifesto for the dissemination of the young generation's philosophical thought”.
Altitude's ephemerality is most likely due to the difficulty of such a small group of editors to ensure the simultaneous publication of both titles, all the more so since the biweekly periodical they called the magazine of young thought was going through a period of great editorial irregularity, which, in fact, proved impossible to overcome a year after it survived the literary and artistic bulletin.
Luís Andrade
