THE Language of Modernism it is unpretentious and unconcerned with formal standards.
This is because many writers belonging to the beginning of the movement, broke with syntax, metrics and rhymes.
Thus, they approached colloquial, subjective, original, critical, sarcastic and ironic language.
Remember that Modernism was an artistic-literary movement that emerged in the 20th century in Brazil and around the world.
Modernist literary production stood out in poetry and prose, breaking with current aesthetic standards.
Characteristics of Modernism
Modernism in Brazil was propelled by the Week of Modern Art of 1922, which received great influence from the European artistic avant-gardes.
THE Modern Art Week it represented a moment of cultural effervescence. It was based on the rupture, liberation of art and, therefore, on the aesthetic renewal and consolidation of a truly national art.
In Brazil, the theme used in modernism had, above all, a nationalist-bragging character.
This characteristic was noticed by the valorization of the Brazilian language and folklore, expressed by the formal freedom of free and white verses (absence of meter and rhyme).
Many manifestos, magazines and groups that emerged at this time expressed this paradigm shift, for example:
- Pau-Brasil Manifesto (1924)
- Green-Yellow Movement (1925)
- The Magazine (1925)
- Regionalist Manifesto (1926)
- Terra Roxa and Other Lands Magazine (1926)
- Festa Magazine (1927)
- Green Magazine (1927)
- Anthropophagous Manifesto (1928)
Modernist Generations in Brazil
Modernism in Brazil is divided into three phases:
Named "heroic phase” was marked by the destruction of values and the denial of formalism in art. The writers Oswald de Andrade, Mario de Andrade and Manuel Bandeira stand out.
“Pneumothorax” by Manuel Bandeira
"Fever, hemoptysis, dyspnea and night sweats.
A lifetime that could have been and wasn't.
Cough, cough, cough.
He sent for the doctor:
"Say thirty-three."
— Thirty-three… thirty-three… thirty-three…
- Breathe.
"You have an excavation in your left lung and an infiltrated right lung."
"So, doctor, it's not possible to try pneumothorax?"
- No. The only thing to do is play an Argentine tango."
Named "Construction Phase”, at this moment, the writers distance themselves a little from the destructive vision of the first phase. Thus, they consolidated various aspects of modern art through social and historical content.
In modernist poetry, writers stand out: Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Cecília Meireles, Murilo Mendes, Jorge de Lima and Vinícius de Moraes.
In the prose (psychological and regionalist novels), writers are highlighted: Graciliano Ramos, José Lins do Rego, Rachel de Queiroz, Jorge Amado and Érico Veríssimo.
“Quadrilha” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade
"João loved Teresa who loved Raimundo
who loved Maria who loved Joaquim who loved Lili
who didn't love anyone.
João went to the United States, Teresa to the
convent,
Raimundo died of disaster, Maria was left to aunt,
Joaquim committed suicide and Lili married J. Chick
Fernandes
that had not entered history."
Also known as "Generation of 45” this phase of modernism was marked by the search for national aspects.
The language in this period acquires very different characteristics in relation to the beginning of the modernist movement. For this reason, this group of literati became known as “neo-Parnasians” or “neo-romantics”.
Formal rigor, from meter and rhyme, rationalism and balance, are notorious in this generation that stands out in poetry and prose.
In poetry, the artists who deserve mention are: Mário Quintana and João Cabral de Melo Neto.
In prose, Guimarães Rosa and Clarice Lispector focus on the intimate universe as a way to present the existential questioning and interior investigation of their characters.
“little poem against” by Mario Quintana
"All those who are there
obstructing my path,
They will pass…
I bird!"
Read too:
- Modernism in Brazil
- Modernism in Brazil: Characteristics and Historical Context
- Modernism: all about movement in literature and the arts
- Characteristics of Modernism
- Authors of the First Phase of Modernism in Brazil
- Authors of the Second Phase of Modernism in Brazil
Modernist Generations in Portugal
Modernism in Portugal had as its starting point the publication of the Magazine "orpheus”, in 1915.
This magazine included writers: Fernando Pessoa, Mário de Sá Carneiro and Almada Negreiros, belonging to the first modernist generation.
As in Brazil, Modernism in Portugal was divided into three phases:
Orphism or the Orpheus Generation
The first modernist generation in Portugal comprises the period between 1915 and 1927. The following writers are part of it: Fernando Pessoa, Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Almada Negreiros, Luís de Montalvor and the Brazilian Ronald de Carvalho.
“Portuguese Sea” by Fernando Pessoa
"O salty sea, how much of your salt
They are tears from Portugal!
For crossing you, how many mothers cried,
How many children prayed in vain!
How many brides remained unmarried
That you should be ours, oh sea!
Worth it? Everything is worth it
If the soul is not small.
Who wants to go beyond Bojador
You have to go beyond pain.
God to sea the danger and the abyss gave,
But it was in him that the sky was mirrored."
Presence or Presence Generation
In the second modernist generation, which comprises the period between 1927 and 1940, the writers Branquinho da Fonseca, João Gaspar Simões and José Régio stand out.
“Black Song” by José Régio
"Come this way" — some with sweet eyes tell me
Reaching out to me, and safe
That it would be good if I heard them
When they say to me: "Come this way!"
I look at them with lax eyes,
(There are, in my eyes, ironies and tiredness)
And I cross my arms,
And I never go there...
My glory is this:
Create inhumanities!
Do not accompany anyone.
— That I live with the same unwillingness
With which I tore my mother's womb
No, I will not go through there! I just go where
They take my own steps...
If to what I seek to know none of you respond
Why do you repeat to me: "Come this way!"?
I prefer to slip in muddy alleys,
Swirl in the winds,
Like rags, dragging bloody feet,
Going around... If I came into the world, it was
Just to deflower virgin forests,
And draw my own feet in the unexplored sand!
The most I do is worthless.
how then will you be
That you will give me impulses, tools and courage
For me to break down my obstacles...
Runs through your veins, old blood of grandparents,
And you love what is easy!
I love Far and Mirage,
I love the abysses, the torrents, the deserts...
Go! you have roads,
You have gardens, you have flower beds,
You have a homeland, you have roofs,
And you have rules, and treatises, and philosophers, and sages...
I have my Madness!
I lift it, like a beam, burning in the dark night,
And I feel foam, and blood, and chants on my lips...
God and the Devil guide, no one else!
Everyone had a father, everyone had a mother;
But I, who never start or finish,
I was born from the love that exists between God and the Devil.
Ah, let no one give me pious intentions,
Nobody ask me for definitions!
Nobody tell me: "come this way"!
My life is a gale that broke,
It's a wave the grew high,
It's one more atom that has become animated...
I don't know where I'm going,
I do not know where I'm going
I know I will not go that way!"
neorealism
Neorealist literature in Portugal began in 1940 with the publication of the novel "Gaibés" by Alves Redol. In this generation, in addition to Alves Redol, Ferreira de Castro and Soeiro Pereira Gomes stand out.
“Gaibéus” by Alves Redol
"It had been three days since the tractor stopped and the watering machine didn't see any drop of water transferred from the Tagus.
The rice farmer, squeezed by his boss, walked on a winder, through swaths and lines, looking at the beds with the blondest cob, spiking, now here, now there, so that the waters would go towards the sewer ditch and the ranches could put scythes in the rice field.
With his shovel up, resting on his shoulder, "Mr Arriques" was already thinking about going home, for only a few weeks would go from bleeding to picking the berry.
- What a rich harvest! I walked in it like a shadow behind a broken soul, but the boss snatches over forty seeds. If others could eat it with envy...
And he cast his eyes over the mantle of golden panicles, which the ridges were perforating and the gentle breeze puckering, like a sledgehammer in an ocean of gold.
Over there and here, a patch or other of green betraying the chrome that the sun was pulling out of it, an indication of some head that the hoes, in the rigging of the earth, had not knocked down.
- Just the boss didn't walk on fire because of the ranch, six days of soak would give him some pretty good bags. Thus... still adds a harvest as there is no other around here.
I walked for eight months running those combros from top to bottom. First, from flags pulling out sights to lift him from the lanes and sending men into the ditch, until the trays could receive a sheet of water for sowing; then, to direct the flow that Lezíria entered every day through the main watering can, lest their rice plants drown or some die from starvation."