Jun 09, 2025
Celebrating Cordel Literature
This Doodle celebrates cordel literature, a popular Brazilian literary genre characterized by rhyming poems, usually illustrated with woodcuts, displayed hanging from ropes.
About Celebrating Cordel
This Doodle celebrates cordel, a form of narrative folk poetry that originated in Northeastern Brazil during the 19th century. Cordel poems and songs are often performed at events like festas juninas (June parties), large summer festivals that bring entire communities together in Brazil.
Cordel consists of language that’s simple enough to be understood by all, and is typically performed aloud to preserve Brazil’s rich oral tradition. Story themes include epic adventures, tragic love stories, historical tales, social commentary, and folk heroes. While narrative in nature, cordel is also printed onto small pamphlets called chapbooks so audience members can read and sing along. These colorful chapbooks feature distinct woodcut, black-and-white pictures on the front cover.
Festas juninas are events for gifted cordelistas (writers) and repentistas (performers) to showcase their work and skills. These local festivals, hosted in June to celebrate the arrival of summer, encourage performers to share stories about farming, bountiful harvests, and other aspects of rural life. Beyond cordel, festas juninas are home to forró, upbeat dance music that’s led by the accordion. Delicious foods like pamonha (boiled sweet corn paste) and fun games like pescaria are also abundant at these parties.
The artwork, which combines the woodcut style of cordel chapbooks and the lively accordion music of festas juninas, pays homage to both of these rich, community-driven Brazilian traditions.
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