Tradition and modernity in dialogue in the correspondence between Pio Lourenço Corrêa and Mário de Andrade

Abstract

This work aims to present and discuss some personal and literary aspects of the epistolary dialogue between Mário de Andrade (1893-1945) and Pio Lourenço Corrêa (1875-1957), a privileged interlocutor of the author of Macunaíma (1928) who, despite not being linked to tradition (“my brains cannot admit of a no-meter, no-rhyme , and nolaw verse”) as he confessed in  a letter  to Mario after  the  Semana  de Arte  Moderna (1922), played an important role in the works of the modernist writer and was present at Mario's self-discovery process as a poet as well, in part, in the construction of  Mario's style. The prolonged correspondence exchanged between 1917 and 1945, and interrupted only by the death of Mário, also reveal other human aspects as the father figure that in certain moments Pio played, besides the role of friend and confidant of the modernist writer. Intellectually, the wide range of Pio Lourenço’s general knowledge, including linguistic and literary scholarship, were important elements in the construction of several Mario de Andrade’s texts.