Brazil, January 1st, 1502, or the discovery of Brazil according to Elizabeth Bishop

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Brazil, January 1^st, 1502” as an intertext that establishes a dialogue with the travel writing about Brazil. The poet appropriates the old cliché of Brazilian nature looking like a tapestry to create a particular vision situated in two historical moments: that of the arrival of the Portuguese at Guanabara Bay in 1502 and her own time. I also analyze the relation between nature and woman, both submitted to the covetous gaze of the foreign observer.