The press in the Rio de Janeiro Belle Époque
Belle Époque is a recognised chrononym referring to the period
that preceded the outbreak of the First World War.
1 Dominique Kalifa, La véritable histoire de la Belle Époque (Paris: Fayard, 2017). And, while there is agreement that 1914 marked the end of this period, it is generally considered to have begun in the late 1800s. Whereas the beginning of the phenomenon in Brazil is narrowed down to the year 1898, it is noteworthy that the socio-cultural foundations of the Carioca
Belle Époque date back to the
Segundo Reinado (Second Reign – under the rule of Emperor Dom Pedro II). The urban transformations observed from the 1870s onwards in Rio de Janeiro and other Latin American cities should therefore be considered.
2 Jeffrey Needell, Belle Époque tropical. Sociedade e cultura de elite no Rio de Janeiro na virada do século (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993). During the period covered by the research (1884–1912), significant changes occurred in Brazil, starting with the Aurea Law (13 May 1888), which finally abolished slavery, and the Proclamation of the Republic (15 November 1889). From an economic point of view, coffee production in the south-east of the country guaranteed economic stability and attracted thousands of immigrants, especially Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards, who flocked to the farming areas. Rio de Janeiro, the national capital at the time, like other cities, experienced substantial population growth, from 274,972 inhabitants recorded in the 1872 census to 522,651 in the following 1890 census. Ten years later, it reached 691,565, and, by 1906, when the city’s major remodelling, aimed at bringing it closer to European capitals, was nearing completion, the population had reached 811,444.
3 Jaime Larry Benchimol, Pereira Passos: um Haussmann tropical (Rio de Janeiro: Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, 1990), p. 172. The progress and modernity achieved in this period and borne out by the development of the press, trams, railways, electric lighting, the opening of avenues, squares, and public gardens ensured that the country would join the ranks of European nations. Collaborating with newspapers and magazines became unavoidable, not only for aspiring writers seeking recognition but also for established figures in the literary pantheon. Even those with secure positions in prestigious academies relied on the public image that only the press could provide. Thanks to the many caricatures and portraits, intellectuals became familiar faces,
4 On the presence of portraits of writers in the press, see: Martine Lavaud, ‘Envisager l’histoire littéraire Pour une épistémologie du portrait photographique d’écrivain’. COnTEXTES. Revue de sociologie de la littérature, 14 (2014) <https://doi.org/10.4000/contextes> [accessed 10 Jan. 2024]. their lifestyles and opinions on the most varied subjects aroused the curiosity and attention of readers, whether in Brazil or in European cities of the late nineteenth century.
5 ‘With the exception of Flaubert, who, with difficulty, resisted its bewitching sirens, virtually all of them were hired at one time or another by the press. Some […] worked in it for life. For many, the adventure even led to the creation of a newspaper […]. Regardless of this maximum commitment that constitutes the foundation of a periodical, most men of letters in the nineteenth century are therefore invested in the writing of journals and newspapers, inaugurating new publishing practices which had consequences that have not yet been fully understood in terms of poetry.’ [‘À l’exception de Flaubert, qui a résisté – avec difficulté – à ses sirènes ensorcelantes, pratiquement tous ont été engagés à un moment ou à un autre par la presse. Certains […] se sont attelés à elle pour la vie. Pour beaucoup d’entre eux, l’aventure a même abouti à la création d’un journal […]. Indépendamment de cet engagement maximal que constitue la fondation d’un périodique, la plupart des hommes de lettres au XIXe siècle sont donc investis dans la rédaction de revues et de quotidiens, inaugurant des pratiques de publication tour à fait neuves et dont on ne mesure pas encore aujourd’hui toutes les conséquences en termes de poétique.’] Marie-Ève Thérenty, La Littérature au quotidien. Poétique journalistique au XIXe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2007), pp. 13 and 16.It is true that the press played a key role in stimulating freelance intellectual activity and in the emergence of the figure of the author. However, in Brazil, at least until the mid-twentieth century, one could not live off writing alone; authors relied on reconciling writing with liberal professions and working in public service roles or positions. The newspapers, for their part, were rewarded with the prestige of showcasing famous names on their pages, while at the same time gaining the loyal readership of subscribers, and there emerged a symbiotic relationship with mutually enhanced benefits.
Writing for the daily press, however, meant subordinating oneself to a fast-paced tempo, where the topicality of and interest in matters was very short-lived. Contributors had to adapt to the precise rhythms of production (daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly) and bow to the non-negotiable deadlines of going to press, as well as respecting the limited space they were assigned in each edition. They also had the opportunity to multiply their contributions on a wide variety of topics in order to meet the demands and expectations of editors in relation to different themes, textual genres and house styles, whether they were novels, short stories, chronicles, interviews, investigations, reports, or brief literary genres – epigrams, short amusing stories, riddles.
6 Guillaume Pinson and Marie-Ève Thérenty (eds), ‘Microrécits médiatiques. Les formes brèves du journal, entre médiations et fiction’, Études françaises, 44, 3 (2008) <http://revue-etudesfrancaises.umontreal.ca/volume-44-numero-3/> [accessed 10 Jan. 2024].Readiness to meet deadlines, versatility in approaching diverse themes and respect for linguistic recommendations all constitute constraints inherent to the medium and led to new writing practices that would affect not only the production of the literary text, but also the creative process itself.
7 Flora Süssekind, Cinematógrafo de letras. Literatura, técnica e modernização do Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1987). As early as 1839, in a famous article in the
Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris, 1829), the critic Saint-Beuve coined the term ‘industrial literature’, that is, written at full throttle, to refer to hurried output in line with newspaper and magazine rhythm and needs.
8 Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve, ‘De la littérature industrielle’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 19 (1839), pp. 675–691, <https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Litt%C3%A9rature_industrielle> [accessed 15 Jan. 2024]. These imperatives, intrinsic to the newspaper medium, entailed strenuous work, regulated and disciplined not by inspiration and reflection, which according to common sense would be inseparable companions of those who wrote, but rather by the schedule of the press rollers.
The daily newspaper business itself was becoming more complex, with hierarchies that included editors, columnists, reporters, proofreaders, translators, illustrators, cartoonists, and photographers, responsible for filling the pages with a variety of texts and images. They now shared space with the once almost exclusive political article: interviews, polls, reports, international correspondence, literature pieces, and columns by literary, theatre, and art critics, sections on fashion, children, sports, and crime, as well as the sensationalism of the faits divers.
We should not lose sight of the fact that, around the turn of the twentieth century, new forms of writing reshaped the publishing landscape. Newspapers and magazines offered unprecedented possibilities, whether in terms of literary experimentation, remuneration, and the professionalisation of intellectual activity in development at the time, or even fame among readers. Scholarly literature has drawn attention to the difficulty of establishing clear boundaries between journalists and writers throughout the nineteenth century and even in the early twentieth century, despite the undeniable hierarchy associated with the different types of media. While books have always been shrouded in an aura of permanence and durability, periodicals bear the marks of the fleeting and ephemeral. The daily newspaper, above all, is associated with immediate consumption; after all, yesterday’s news no longer attracts attention, unlike magazines, which for a long time were published with continuous pagination, a strategy to encourage readers to collect the issues in a binder for a year, resulting in a ‘book’ worthy of a place on the library shelf.
Writer-journalists (including women writer-journalists) became part of a complex cycle that incorporated different instances of legitimacy – periodicals, conferences, theatre production, presence in prestigious publishing houses, belonging to literary associations – which intertwined and formed a subtle fabric within which one had to learn how to navigate with agility. In fact, much of the materials published in volumes had already appeared in newspapers, magazines, or theatres, an evidence of both the book format’s enduring cultural value and the publishing industry’s growing cross-media practices. This creates an exciting area of research into how newspapers were repurposed into books, as it is widely understood that the medium plays an active role rather than being neutral.
9 See the classic study by Donald Francis Mckenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).From the author’s point of view, this migration was a way to overcome the obscurity caused by the ephemerality of daily newspapers, as the work published in these papers often did not provide writers with access to established institutions like literary academies. This operation involved varying degrees of selection, ordering, and possible changes to the content, now accompanied by paratextual elements (peritexts and epitexts),
10 On the functions of these elements, see: Gerald Genette, Paratextos editoriais (São Paulo: Ateliê Editorial, 2009). with a view to adapting it to the new medium and the required reading pace.
11 On this subject, see: Marie-Éve Thérenty, ‘Métamorphoses littéraires’, in La civilisation du journal. Histoire culturelle et littéraire de la presse française au XIXe siècle, Dominique Kalifa, Phillipe Régnier, Marie-Ève Thérenty, and Alain Vaillant (eds) (Paris: Nouveau Monde Éditions, 2011), pp. 1509–1521. This shift changed how readers experienced the texts. As a book, the works gained new meaning, detached from their original newspaper context and the relationship they had with surrounding articles. From a strictly economic perspective, the editorial contract enabled remuneration for a product that had already been paid for, even if the move to the new format involved major or minor rearrangements and revisions, which meant reworking what had already been printed in newspapers.
The publishers, on the other hand, were making a safe bet despite the fact that the decision was based less on their own judgement of the work’s value than on assessments made by readers of the periodical press. This not only undermined their role but also placed the book, in Hélène Campaignolle’s fitting words, in the shadow of the newspaper.
12 The author contrasts Mallarmé’s and Maupassant’s different attitudes to the changes that were taking place: Hélène Campaignolle, ‘Le livre à l’ombre du journal: deux représentations de la littérature à la fin du 19e siècle’. Sens Public. Revue électronique internationale, 5 (2010), pp. 1–17, <http://www.sens-public.org/IMG/pdf/SensPublic_HCampaignolle_Le_Livre_a_l_ombre_du_Journal.pdf> [accessed 19 Jan. 2024]. Thus, publishers and authors were interested in quickly presenting in book form both the most successful serialised novels and other works like short stories, reports, and chronicles in order to capitalise on temporary fame and attract the attention of readers who were already interested in those works. There is, therefore, an observable overlap between the different instances. Journalistic practice had repercussions on literary practice, and the book production process was, at least in part, influenced by the outcomes achieved in the short-lived periodical publications. This reflects a circuit made up of multiple hybridisations that required careful navigation
However, it was a world largely dominated by men, reflecting the roles assigned to women in society at the time. Despite the emergence of movements advocating for education and political participation throughout the nineteenth century, these demands faced strong resistance from various social sectors, which viewed proposals threatening to change established hierarchies with trepidation. The scientific discourse, mindset and legislation of the time insisted on the social function ascribed to the family and on the secondary place that nature itself had assigned to women, who required constant supervision and care and whose natural habitat was limited to the domestic world and its demands.
13 See: Irene Vaquinhas, ‘Senhoras e mulheres’ na sociedade portuguesa do século XIX (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 2000). Marriage, motherhood and submission to the father or husband were part of the tradition established and reiterated by discourses and practices, whether institutionalised or not. The winds of change brought by the new bourgeois order, rooted in science, progress, and the rising demand for labour, disrupted established social markers and introduced potential futures that undermined what had been widely accepted as clear and obvious. This transformation created openings and spaces for negotiating norms and standards that were once taken for granted.
14 For an analysis from a historical perspective, see: Judith P. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge Classics, 2006).The press played a crucial role in disseminating a new discourse on women. On one hand, it served to warn of the threats and social dangers posed by behaviours that challenged traditional values – a stance that was largely dominant in Brazil. On the other hand, it questioned these norms and proposed reforms. The latter typically appeared in smaller circulation publications, often run by women who dared to advocate for changes to the prevailing order.
15 Regarding the Brazilian scene, see: Constância Lima Duarte, Imprensa feminina e feminista no Brasil. Século XIX (Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2017). However, between these two poles, there was room for compromise, so much so that some women managed to cross borders, establish themselves as writers, and participate in the restricted
république de lettres, as the contributors to
O País clearly show.