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Researchers from Brazil and France to analyze Europe's largest cordel collection
Conserved by the university of poitiers, the collection of french professor Raymond Cantel – comprising around 5,000 documents – was the focus of an event in february, featuring an online round table
The Raymond Cantel Collection is the largest collection of cordel literature in Europe
“Through Cantel, researchers in Brazil began to take a different outlook of cordel literature.” This is how Sylvia Nemer, a researcher at the Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, defines the relevance of French professor and researcher of Brazilian culture Raymond Cantel (1914-1986). Cantel gathered one of the largest collections of cordel literature pamphlets in the world, with around 5,000 documents – most of them collected in the Brazilian Northeast.
Preserved at the University of Poitiers, in France, where Cantel taught, this collection was the topic of the Raymond Cantel Collection in Evolution – Preservation, Communicability and Recent French-Brazilian Research seminar, held last month, with the participation of researchers from Brazil and France. Promoted by the USP Institute of Brazilian Studies (IEB) and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société of the University of Poitiers, the event took place at the French university, with one of the three planned round tables held online and broadcast on IEB’s YouTube channel.
In this round table, four Brazilian researchers discussed the topic of Cantel and his Collection’s Relevance, including Professor Paulo Teixeira Lumatti from the IEB. In addition to him and Sylvia Nemer, Professor Rosilene Alves de Melo, from the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) in Paraíba, and Professor Marco Haurélio, from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), participated in the live session. The event—which opened with a lecture by Professor Francisca Pereira dos Santos from the Federal University of Cariri (UFCA) in Ceará—was organized by Brazilian researchers Karina Marques and Angélica Amâncio, who are scientifically in charge of Cantel’s collection. Simultaneously, the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société’s conference room hosted the exhibition From Dila de Caruaru to Poitiers, based on documents from the Raymond Cantel Collection, about the poet and woodcut artist Mestre Dila’s work (1937-2019) from Caruaru (PE).
“Cantel’s collection mainly reflects the network of relationships between Northeastern cordel authors and singers from the 1950s to the 1970s,” Professor Paulo Lumatti said. “His collection doesn’t just concern the cordel pamphlets themselves or the recordings of songs he made, but also his archive of letters and other documents that reveal a whole intellectual universe involving poets, singers, woodcut artists, collectors, and folklorists,” he added. For him, Cantel helped support Brazil-France relations and studies on Brazil in France. “This is no small feat, considering that singing and cordel are cultural productions that have historically been unappreciated in Brazil.”
During his participation in the seminar, Lumatti presented the initial data from research on the singer-songwriter Siba Veloso from Pernambuco. “He is a relevant and prestigious Brazilian artist from the independent scene, whose personal style is totally immersed in the poetics of cordel literature and, above all, singing—not in the sense of ‘drinking from the source’, but of structurally appropriating and incorporating certain creative processes,” Lumatti pointed out. “Siba’s career shows that what is called ‘tradition’ is actually a set of creative processes that are constantly changing and reinventing itself.
Woodcuts from the Brazilian Northeast form a large part of the Raymond Cantel Collection, conserved by the University of Poitiers in France – Photo: Reproduction
Professor visited Brazil for the first time in 1959
Raymond Cantel traveled to Brazil for the first time in 1959, initially to study topics connected to messianism. However, he soon became captivated by cordel literature and began researching it. “From his first visit until his death in 1986, he visited Brazil systematically, giving lectures on cordel literature,” the researcher Sylvia Nemer says.
Sylvia says that, during his time in Brazil, Cantel’s main institution was the Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation because it mediated with other institutions to hold congresses and lectures. “At the foundation, he was in touch with various cordel researchers, such as Sebastião Nunes Batista, and this opened up a range of different options in relation to research and the making of cordel itself,” the researcher points out. As an example, she cites a line by the cordel author Raimundo Santa Helena, taken from documents at the Casa de Rui Barbosa, in which he says: “I started making verses the way I do today because of Cantel’s influence”. “In other words, he played a very big role in influencing researchers and also one or other cordel author because he circulated a lot, not only in academic circles and memory but also at fairs, markets, places where cordels were produced and sold,” Sylvia adds.
Woodcut, a typical folk art of the Brazilian Northeast, captivated Professor Raymond Cantel on his first visit to Brazil in 1959 – Photo: Reproduction
Collection includes photographs and recordings
The Raymond Cantel Collection, now under University of Poitiers’ care, has greatly progressed since 2018, when cordel was recognized as a Brazilian Intangible Cultural Heritage by the National Historical and Artistic Institute (Iphan) – alongside woodcut and performative declamation, which are related assets. It is currently the largest collection of this type of literature in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Most of his 5,000 documents have been published in Portuguese, but there are also works in Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, and German. “It’s a very rich collection. There are photographs, recordings, songs, interviews with poets, images from lectures, as well as printed, typed and handwritten manuscripts,” Sylvia sums up.
The researcher emphasizes the importance of cultural and academic transit between Brazil and France. “There was a great exchange of knowledge between Raymond Cantel and researchers from Rio de Janeiro and the cordel and woodcut producers themselves,” Sylvia emphasizes. “Not only did he take a very large collection of material to France, but he also gave courses and had several master’s classes on cordel literature. Many French researchers came to Brazil and even stayed here.” The poet Patativa do Assaré (1909-2022) from Ceará was one of the Brazilian cordel authors introduced to France by Cantel.
For Sylvia, the general, non-specialized public must have access to and interest in consuming cordel literature through events that promote it, as happens in France. “French researchers also hold exhibitions. And that’s very positive because we’re exporting our imagery, art, and culture beyond the borders where that art is produced.”
Professor Raymond Cantel, in a woodcut by J. Barros – Photo: Reproduction
Researcher Sylvia Nemer – Photo: Personal archive
At the same time as the seminar, the conference room of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société at the University of Poitiers will host an exhibition on the poet and woodcut artist Mestre Dila, from Caruaru – Photo: Publicity
The round table Cantel and his Collection’s Relevance, part of the Raymond Cantel Collection in Evolution – Preservation, Communicability, and Recent French-Brazilian Research seminar was broadcast on the IEB’s YouTube channel. The seminar’s full schedule is available at this link.