The Language of Brazilian Modernism: a comparative perspective

Abstract

The Brazilian Modernists did not constitute a unified movement at the beginning of the 20th century, nor did they have a consolidated agenda of themes to be dealt with or widely shared techniques to deal with them or even a unified vision about language. Throughout the first decades of that century, the Modernists formed different groups (some of which defined themselves through manifestos) and sought, in different ways, to contrast what they were doing with what previous literary generations had done, sometimes rejecting and at other times acknowledging their relationship with the previous literary tradition. As far as the issue of language is concerned, it is not usual to bring a comparatist dimension to discussions of language in Brazilian Modernism, maybe because we should always bear in mind that looking comparatively at literary periods brings with it a series of problems. But our goal here is exactly to discuss the language of Brazilian Modernism in a comparative perspective.

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Original in English.