A Most Tragic Word---Saudades

I encountered this word for the first time as a header to an email sent to me by my somewhat eccentric father, who lives in an island far away from where I currently live. It inspired a collection of found-words in many languages, which are not often used but possess a sort of power of meaning that puts them at the margins of concrete poetry. Might I imply that this word is a sort of folk-art? If you click on the links (in Wikipedia), the article will follow the progress of the word in music and in art. The word itself has been charged with a rich history of cultural products inspired by itself, dialectically becoming possessed with a cultural meaning that goes beyond its seven letters and makes it impossible to use casually.


Its an effect similar to the use of the word "Love," perhaps another folk word, which means very little within itself and certainly nothing universal, but finds some significance when it is inserted in cultural objects, meaning in as much as it is related to other acts or events which can be measured in aesthetic, 'artificial' media, like poetry, film, music, etc. The word Saudade is a staple of folk, Portuguese culture.

***
Saudade

Saudade (singular) or saudades (plural) (pronounced [sɐ.uˈdaðɨ] or [sawˈdaðɨ] in Portuguese,^[1] is a Portuguese word that can be translated as "longing, yearning", which describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.
Saudade has been described as a "vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist ... a turning towards the past or towards the future".^[2] A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing. It may also be translated as a deep longing or yearning for something which does not exist or is unattainable.
Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" or "the love that stays" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone ( e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. In Portuguese, 'tenho saudades tuas', translates as 'I have saudades for you' meaning 'I miss you', but carries a much stronger tone. In fact, one can have 'saudades' of someone whom one is with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future.
In Brazil, the day of saudade is officially celebrated on January 30.^[3][4]

Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Origins 2 Definition 3 Elements 3.1 In music 4 Variations 5 Similar words in other languages 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

History

Origins

The word saudade was used in the Cancioneiro da Ajuda (13th-century), Cancioneiro da Vaticana and by poets of the time of by King Denis of Portugal.^[5] Some specialists say the word may have originated during the Great Portuguese Discoveries, giving meaning to the sadness felt about those who departed on journeys to unknown seas and disappeared in shipwrecks, died in battle, or simply never returned. Those who stayed behind—mostly women and children—suffered deeply in their absence; However, the Portuguese discoveries only started in 1415 and since the word has been found earlier this does not constitute a very good explanation. The Reconquista is also a plausible explanation.
The state of mind has subsequently become a "Portuguese way of life": a constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, wishful longing for completeness or wholeness and the yearning for the return of that now gone, a desire for presence as opposed to absence—as it is said in Portuguese, a strong desire to "matar as saudades" (lit. to kill the saudades).
In the latter half of the 20th century, saudade became associated with the feeling of longing for one's homeland, as hundreds of thousands of Portuguese-speaking people left in search of better futures in South America, North America and Western Europe. Besides the implications derived from an emigratory trend from the motherland, historically speaking saudade is the term associated with the decline of Portugal's role in world politics and trade. During the so-called 'Golden Age', synonymous with the era of discoveries, Portugal undeniably rose to the status of a world power, and its monarchy was one of the richest in Europe at the time. But with the rise of competition from other European nations, the country went both colonially and economically into a prolonged period of decay. This period of decline and resignation from the world's cultural stage marked the rise of saudade, aptly described by a sentence of its national anthem—'Levantai hoje de novo o esplendor de Portugal' (Let us once again lift up the splendour of Portugal).

Definition

Saudade (or saudades) is defined as "a somewhat melancholic feeling of incompleteness. It is related to think back situations of privation due to the absence of someone or something, to move away from a place or thing, or to the absence of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived".^[6]

Elements

Saudades de Nápoles (Missing Naples), 1895 by Bertha Worms.

Saudade is quite similar to nostalgia, a word that also exists in Portuguese.
In the book In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G. Bell writes:

The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.^[2]

A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as old ways and sayings; a lost lover who is sadly missed; a faraway place where one was raised; loved ones who have died; feelings and stimuli one used to have; and the faded, yet golden memories of youth. Although it relates to feelings of melancholy and fond memories of things/people/days gone by, it can be a rush of sadness coupled with a paradoxical joy derived from acceptance of fate and the hope of recovering or substituting what is lost by something that will either fill in the void or provide consolation.
Although the word is Portuguese in origin, saudade is a universal feeling related to love. It occurs when two people are in love or like each other, but apart from each other. Saudade occurs when we think of a person who we love and we are happy about having that feeling while we are thinking of that person, but he/she is out of reach, making us sad and crushing our hearts. The pain and these mixed feelings are named "saudade". It is also used to refer to the feeling of being far from people one does love, e.g., one's sister, father, grandparents, friends; it can be applied to places or pets one misses, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past. What sets saudade apart is that it can be directed to anything that is personal and moving. It can also be felt for unrequited love in that the person misses something he or she never really had, but for which might hope, regardless of the possible futility of said hope.

**The rest of the article can be read in Wikipedia.