The weekly chronicle as a combat weapon

After making sparse contributions to periodicals,5 Risolete Maria Hellmann, Ousadia e irreverência na ponta da pena (Barueri: AmoLer, 2021), pp. 282–283. Carmen Dolores achieved genuine public prominence when she was invited by journalist Alcindo Guanabara to write the weekly chronicle for the morning newspaper O País (Rio de Janeiro, 1884–1934), one of the most important Brazilian periodicals, and a bastion of the governments of the First Republic. This was the most traditional type of chronicle in Brazilian journalism and had been practised in the 1850s by pioneers Francisco Otaviano and José de Alencar, who were expected to provide humorous commentary on the main events of the past week in all fields: politics, behaviour, festivities, social and artistic events, book releases, police events, etc. The chronicler of ‘A semana’, however, selected a few recent news events for her comments and, generally splitting the text into three parts, as Eliane Vasconcellos observed,6 Eliane Vasconcellos, ‘Carmem Dolores’, in Emília Moncorvo Bandeira de Melo (pseudonym Carmen Dolores), Crônicas (1905–1910) (Rio de Janeiro, 1998), pp. 11–20. reserved the final part for the arts, covering mainly theatre, classical music, and literature.

Similarly to Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho (see Chapter 1), Dolores began writing for newspapers mainly to supplement her family income, but no one can dispute the fact that she achieved great success with the reading public of her time; in late 1906 she was invited to write weekly contributions for the Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro, 1901–74), where she published chronicles and short stories. The Recife newspaper Diário de Pernambuco (1825) published her ‘Variações à pena’; A Imprensa (Rio de Janeiro, 1903–14), in 1907, published a collection of her short stories entitled Alma complexa, which was only released as a book in 1934. In 1908, also in A Imprensa, she began to write short stories and chronicles once a month. During this period of collaboration with highly circulating newspapers, she had the opportunity to publish new books: Um drama na roça (short stories, 1908), Lendas brasileiras (1908), Ao esvoaçar da ideia (chronicles, 1910), and A luta (1911). It should be noted that this last book, a posthumous novel, was published in late 1910 as a serialised novel in the afternoon edition of the Jornal do Comércio (Rio de Janeiro, 1827–2016). It may be hypothesised that her intense journalistic activity served as a weapon for her to gain a prominent position in the Brazilian literary milieu. The specific aim here is to highlight how impressively Carmen Dolores exploited the possibilities offered by a traditional weekly column of a leading newspaper, O País, to establish a literary reputation, create or strengthen links with writers with established careers, from whom she could obtain protection and other advantages, associate herself with up-and-coming young people, and become involved in promising controversies with the probable intention of projecting her name and consolidating her public image as a courageous feminist.

An anonymous note published in Correio da Manhã upon her death attributed to her a ‘masculinised style’, which could not be compared to ‘the softness, the feminine charms of Júlia Lopes’,7 Correio da Manhã, 17 Aug. 1910, p. 1, col. 7., p. 2. her contemporary and friend, who collaborated in O País writing about fashion for many years under the pseudonym of Ecila Worms (see Chapter 3) and afterwards publishing weekly chronicles between 1906 and 1912 (see Chapter 4). In another obituary, O País praised her ‘power of observation’ and ‘courageous thinking’.8 O País, 17 Aug. 1910, p. 3. Speaking at her graveside, Coelho Neto, also her friend, said that Carmen Dolores had possessed a ‘virile talent’. Her replacement for the ‘A semana’ column, Gilberto Amado, who perhaps best characterised what many saw as her ‘virility’ when he said that his predecessor’s words ‘were never impaired by reticence, nor did they cling to hesitation’, because if she had sympathies, she ‘proclaimed them’, and if she harboured hatreds, she ‘hardly hid them’. The new chronicler deemed her ‘strong, clear, fearless’ and capable, with her frankness, of shaking ‘the drowsiness of unseasoned readers’. In short, in her hands the pen was ‘a combat weapon’.9 Gilberto Amado, ‘A semana’, O País, 21 Aug. 1910, p. 1. Her ‘virility’ was quite simply her ‘combativeness’, which she used in favour of feminism, divorce, and her own interests, particularly literary ones. Her ‘unbridled courage’ was so unusual that, according to Jic, in Correio da Manhã,10 Jic, ‘Carmen Dolores’, Correio da Manhã, 17 Jan. 1908, p. 1. for a while readers imagined that a man was behind the pseudonym Carmen Dolores. This is what the young Agripino Grieco thought, for example.11 Agripino Grieco, ‘Carmen Dolores’, A Imprensa, 18 Aug. 1910, p. 1.

On 3 June 1906, in her column ‘A semana’, Carmen Dolores focused on certain problems in Rio’s intelligentsia. Her thoughts were prompted by a letter received from Gaston Calmette, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Le Figaro (Paris, 1826), for whom literary success in France was often achieved by chance and favoured ‘triumphant mediocrities’, discouraging true talents, who were doomed to oblivion. The Parisian journalist’s comments motivated the chronicler to analyse the modest journalistic and literary milieu of Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the Brazilian republic, where only a ‘handful of privileged people’, in her opinion ‘always the same ones’, had managed to ‘ride the wave of sympathetic opinion’. Literary production in Brazil was scarce, contrasting with the abundance of literature in France, meaning a certain monopoly of success had developed in Rio de Janeiro, creating an ‘inhospitable atmosphere’ around any aspiring writer or journalist, as such a hypothetical neophyte would not know the ‘secrets of winning over followers, applause and sympathy’. It would always be ‘exactly the same old contenders’ on the disputed terrain; with victory assured ‘in advance’ for only a few, there would never be an effective ‘battle for success’.

As an illustration of her arguments, Carmen Dolores recounted a conversation she had had a few days earlier with a young and promising poet who was interested in learning about the decisive factor for literary success. The columnist then gave him a disenchanted reply: ‘A question of chance, of timing, of sympathy, of fashion, even of futility, often […] You might have a lot of talent and not be successful, just as you can be successful without having any talent. It’s the whim of luck’. Since ‘modern competition is so exacting and exhausting, so unsettling, so sad’, the chronicler emphasised the need to be able to fall back on ‘friendly encouragement’,12 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 3 Jun. 1906, p. 1. because not all the contenders wrote for the vanity of gaining celebrity. Sometimes people wrote out of material necessity or vital impulse, and it was important for the writer to find some kind of support:

With these considerations, she sought to justify the support her column offered to those who seemed ‘really, frankly worthy, although still unknown’. Despite saying she was aware that her intervention would reinforce her reputation as ‘masculinised’, she declared: ‘Down with fashion and convention in writing! The field is open to any worthy competitor!’ Later on, after discussing the prejudices surrounding women of letters, she posed the following question: ‘is not the virility of the pen perhaps indispensable, as a weapon of defence, to the woman who throws herself into literary struggles alone, without sponsors?’ However, she defended the need for a sponsor to duel ‘with the one hundred-headed monster that is the public’.14 Carmen Dolores, ‘A semana’, O País, 3 Jun. 1906, p. 1.