From “The Girl Who Beat Up Her Mother and Was Turned into a Dog”

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Notes on contributors

Rodolfo Coelho Cavalcante

Rodolfo C. Cavalcante was the author of hundreds of cordel poems spanning from 1940 to his death in 1987. He traveled through the markets of the backlands as an itinerant poet, where he recited his poems. He was also a journalist who published his own tabloid newspaper and was considered a leader of the cordel poets.

“A moça que bateu na mãe e virou cachorra / The Girl Who Beat up Her Mother and Was Turned into a Dog” is a cordelian story poem that illustrates a moral lesson. The genre originates from conventions of European medieval literature that warn of the punishments exacted on those who defy divine will. Here, a girl is turned into a monster for mistreating her mother. These strophes (3-4; 15-20, pp. 47–49) are from the poem of the above title in Brazil’s Folk-Popular Poetry / A Literatura de Cordel, edited by Mark J. Curran (Bloomington: Trafford Publishing, 2010).