Archives of Modernism:

introductory note

Abstract

The text that follows is an introduction to the reproduction of four documents of Brazilian modernism that, presumably, are being republished here for the first time: “Os novos do Piauí”, by J. J. Gomes Sampaio (Gilberto Freyre’s pseudonym), published in 1926; “Os jacarés inofensivos” and “Convalescença”, both by Mário de Andrade, published in 1923; “A futurist contest”, an anonymous page from the magazine A Pilhéria, that, in 1925, exhibited a satire on “Futurism”. These texts aim at bridging some gaps in the history of Brazilian modernism. They also highlight the importance of group formation, even if by making up a fake one, besides documenting Freyre’s modernist activities in the 1920s; revisions and reflections of the year 1923, usually taken as an unproductive period of the movement; the national diffusion of the modernist/avant-garde ideas; the latter received sometimes satirical responses, which, paradoxically, became a part of the very aesthetics they tried to oppose.