Concept and diversity of the modernist novel

A perspective for the Brazilian case

Abstract

The number of novels in Brazilian modernism is generally associated with a limited amount of titles from the 1920s, which suggests, by their formal aspect, a distance from the narrative techniques commonly related to fiction in historical realism. Thus, at least two complications arise: this distance is not restricted to few novels from the 1920s, and the realist techniques are not completely disassociated from the genre’s own nature. These complications suggest the need for a review of the concept of modernist novel in Brazilian literature, bearing in mind, on the one hand, the connections between the variety and the permanence of the realist narrative as well as the diversity of the modernizing contents; and, on the other hand, an interest in the continuity of the experimental processes in the history of this genre. By considering the notion of “intensive novel” (Hermann Broch), the goal of this essay is to contribute to this review in an effort to promote a different perspective for the study of the modernist novel in Brazilian literature.