Cleópatra prostituída ou a evocação histórica a serviço da sátira

Abstract

Olavo Bilac (1865-1918), one of the main Brazilian parnassian poets, published hundreds of satirical poems in carioca and paulista newspapers and magazines. The Gazeta de Notícias in Rio de Janeiro was the principal outlet for these poems that in the main criticized the sociopolitical world of the then capital. Bilac, himself a part of the intellectual elite, supported the somewhat truculent initiatives of the ruling establishment, which, in the early days of republican regime, sought to police the so-called “dangerous classes”. In the text “Cleopatra (modern ode)”, published on the 5th. of May, 1896 (p. 1, 6. col.), the poet compared a carioca prostitute, expelled from Senhor dos Passos street by the police, to the celebrated Queen of Egypt, mistress to Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. The burlesque comparison attempted to pour ridicule on the whore, but the irony rebounded onto the police authority. In his “modern ode”, Bilac made parodic use of one of the principal motifs exploited by the parnassians: a harking back to Antiquity.