Lateness of the avant-guard or avant-guard of the lateness? Oswald de Andrade and the stubborn destinies of Brazil

• Grant number: 09/11861-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2010
• End date: February 29, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Lilia Katri Moritz Schwarcz
• Grantee: Bruna Della Torre de Carvalho Lima
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 08/55377-3 - Formation of the intellectual field and the culture industry in contemporary Brazil, AP.TEM

Abstract

This project aims to forge a social analysis about the novels from Oswald de Andrade, starting from an anthropological thought about the alterative identity constitution processes in peripheral countries. Oswald de Andrade was born in São Paulo, in 1890, graduated in the Largo do São Francisco Law School, worked for several papers, such as Diário de São Paulo, Correio da Manhã, A Gazeta and Estado de São Paulo and travelled many times abroad. In 1917, Oswald, along with Mário de Andrade, Di Cavalcanti, Guilherme de Almeida e Ribeiro Couto, started the first modernist group and could be often seen in the bohemian neighborhoods of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro of the 1920s. The poet, playwright and novelist had an active role in the Modern Art Week in 1922, which took place from the 13th to the 17th of February, in São Paulo's Municipal Theatre and also started the so called "group of the five", along with Mário de Andrade, Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti e Menotti Del Picchia. In 1928 he started the Antropofagia magazine, along with Antonio Alcântara Machado and Raul Bopp. Apart from knowing and having great influence in artists from São Paulo and Rio from 1920 until his death, in 1954, Oswald de Andrade established several relationships and dialogues with social scientists, such as Roger Bastide and Lévi-Strauss. During his life, Oswald de Andrade had many political and intellectual attitudes, always critical of the reality of the country and the world. It was as a poet, playwright, journalist, novelist and intellectual that Oswald de Andrade contributed with thoughts about Brazil, in its many aspects. Always producing literature and art concerned with the surrounding problems, Oswald may be seen as an interpreter of Brazil, just like Gilberto Freyre, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and many others, each in their own way. It is aiming this path that the analysis of the novels written by the author is suggested, as a way to think the "ideas out of place" subject, as made famous by Roberto Schwarz, and also present in the works of Oswald de Andrade and in the relations with the Brazilian images created by the novelist. The aim is to verify how the novels from Oswald de Andrade ended up creating not only documents of its time, but how they also create images, culture, history and identity representations. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

LIMA, Bruna Della Torre de Carvalho. Avant-guard delay or delay of the avant-guard? Oswald de Andrade and the obstinate destinations of Brazil. 2012. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.