Centauro
Centauro was the most significant literary magazine (from the point of view of the critical fortune that followed) of 1916, along with Exílio. Like the latter, Centauro was directed by one the figures behind Orpheu, displaying remarkable continuity with the 1915 magazine. In fact, the graphic similarities are evident when comparing both front pages. Here, Luís de Montalvor, the director of Orpheu’s first issue, featured even more prominently. His introductory text, ‘Tentativa de um ensaio sobre a Decadência’ (‘Attempt at an Essay on Decadence’) defines the aesthetic goal of the magazine (the incipit reads ‘We are the descendants of the century of decadence’). In fact, it is the aesthetics of beauty and the beautiful, the most repeated words of this editorial program, in line with symbolism, that this publication aims to achieve.
Even though Centauro does not declare an intention to create a bridge between Portugal and Brazil (as does Orpheu), and is therefore less cosmopolitan and open to the outside world (its literary collaboration is exclusively national), a tenuous attempt can nonetheless be identified. For example, on the back of the cover page we read about the intention of publishing Brazilian author Eduardo Guimaraens, also present in Orpheu’s second issue, and Spaniard Valle-Inclán. Also curious is the mention, on the same page, of the ‘late artist’ Mário de Sá-Carneiro, who had committed suicide in April of that year in Paris, revealing yet another bond to the 1915 magazine.
As far as Exílio is concerned, this magazine is even more literary, as it excludes publication of texts of any other genre. On the other hand, graphically, they are very similar – Guerra Junqueiro's cliché of the first is matched by Christiano Cruz’s hors-texte, a dismayed-looking centaur, a clear symbol of the importance of classical mythology and a symbolic pantheon character. This figure thus opens the volume announcing Modernity as an 'exile' in the past, underlying the fin du siècle currents, that were considered outdated.
Although some similarities with Orpheu can be detected, one cannot ignore their differences. Centauro emphasizes, as does Exílio, the decadent propensity of its director, who reaches out to some of the less innovative collaborators of the 1915 publication. One example of this is Raul Leal, an author renowned, for the worst reasons, for Sodoma Divinizada (Sodom Divinized); here he publishes a long mythological narrative, ‘A aventura dum Sátiro ou A Morte de Adónis’ (The Adventure of a Satyr or The Death of Adonis), confirming him as a controversial author.
‘Passos da Cruz’ (Footsteps to the Cross) also seems a good pairing for ‘A Hora Absurda’ (The Absurd Hour) that Fernando Pessoa had just published in the spring of the same year in Exílio, especially with regard to tone and structure. Pessoa wrote them in 1914-16, just like Exílio’s long poem. This work will takes on the consecrated (and utterly decadent) idea of the solitary genius, by extension of the accursed artist, who has the mission or curse (hence the title) of civilizing the world – a dysphoric tone that must be contextualized in the year of Mário de Sá-Carneiro’ s death, his ill-fated compagnon de route.
Alberto Osório de Castro is an author clearly associated with this symbolist aesthetic, displaying a significant Eastern influence, and an old collaborator of the emblematic pamphlet of symbolism that was Bohemia Nova (1889). Here he writes four sonnets where the exoticism and exotic atmosphere (e.g., ibis, petite créole) of ymbolism are evident, seen in exhilarated exclamations and hesitations.
Júlio Vilhena and Silva Tavares make up the rest of Centauro’s decadent authorship: the former with a long narrative and evocative poem on the Discoveries (see how at the end of the text Montalvor is echoed: ‘Decadence is the mother of all things... ‘), and the latter with six sequences of irregular and floating verses significantly titled ‘Poemas da Alma Doente’ (Poems of the Sick Soul), where again this grammar of the end of century dream is consecrated.
Perhaps the most important piece in Centauro is the set of sixteen unpublished poems by Camilo Pessanha, a personal friend of Alberto Osório de Castro, clearly influential on his own poetry. Long before Pessanha’s Clepsydra (1920) was published, Ana de Castro Osório, Alberto's sister, obtained these texts from Pessanha himself during a trip to Lisbon (in fact, it is from the end of 1915 that, at his request, Pessanha begins to structure what later will be Clepsydra). Like Pessoa’s sonnets, these texts are based on a kind of symbolism that presents a vague and languid treatment of the subject, and constitute the best example of its kind in Portuguese letters.
It should be noted that Centauro would continue to publish Pessanha, namely his translations of 'Chinese Elegies', as the cover page tells us, if the opportunity to continue the magazine had arisen. Its single issue remains, nevertheless, as an important document of that first publication.
Ricardo Marques
