SOURCE: Curran, Mark J. “Brazil's Literatura de Cordel: Its Distribution and Adaptation to the Brazilian Mass Market.” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 1 (1982): 164-78.

In the following essay, Curran expounds on the literature de cordel, a popular form of narrative poetry written by Brazilian poets of the Northeast, and the means by which it is marketed to the Brazilian public.

The literatura de cordel [popular literature in verse] is that body of narrative poetry with folk-popular characteristics which is written by literate or semi-literate poets principally from Brazil's Northeast.¹ Although popular poetry—that is, written with signed authorship—it has intrinsically folk characteristics: it is persistent and long lasting; its most famous stories are known by title rather than by author to its public; it is closely linked to the oral poetic tradition; and many of its public hear the poetry rather than read it. Its themes range...