The life and career of American poet and writer Elizabeth Bishop falls into two distinct segments: the pre-Brazil years and the Brazil years and beyond. A creature of displacement from childhood, Bishop traveled to Brazil at the age of 40 for a two-week trip and unexpectedly stayed for most of the next two decades, a sojourn that marked her work indelibly. This study explores how Bishop's personal and literary experience in Brazil influenced her work culturally, historically, and linguistically, while she was in Brazil and following her return to the United States. Focusing on the "Brazilian" characteristics of Bishop's work as well as some of the major poems she composed before settling in Brazil, this volume offers fresh perspective on one of the 20th century's most celebrated writers.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Prologue: The Map

Brazil

¿1.¿The Unwritten Elegy

¿2.¿Unravished Brides

¿3.¿Driving to the Interior

¿4.¿Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow

¿5.¿Fire and Light

¿6.¿Eye of the Sparrow

¿7.¿Good Times at Cabo Frio

¿8.¿An Ordinary Evening

¿9.¿Promenade

10.¿In the Middle of the Road

11.¿Crusoe in the Land of Vera Cruz

12.¿A Tale of Jam and Jelly

13.¿"A Miracle for Breakfast"

14.¿The Brazil Book

15.¿Scenery, Storms

Elsewhere

16.¿Different Hats, Different Folks

17.¿Village Matters

18.¿The Art of the Scapegoat

19.¿Burning Bridges

20.¿The Misprint and the Mouse

21.¿Building a Rhyme for Ezra

22.¿Send in a Toy

23.¿Down to the Sea

24.¿Free to Be Free

Epilogue: The Last Book

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index

George Monteiro is a professor emeritus of English and of Portuguese and Brazilian studies at Brown University and the author or editor of books on Henry James, Henry Adams, Robert Frost, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Fernando Pessoa, and Luis de Camoes, among others.