Realizar a modernidade: Pesar o legado modernista na prosa contemporânea de língua portuguesa

Abstract

Hundred years have elapsed since the Semana de arte moderna of São Paulo and since Joyce’s Ulysses appeared for the first time in book form. This article’s aim is to reflect on the modernist legacy in contemporary Portuguese-language literature, focussing on the novel, which was consistently positioned at the centre of world-literary modernity. We would like to question and eventually redefine the concept of literary modernity when applied to literary prose in Portuguese, considering the developmental lines which originated from modernist experiences, both at national and international level. The central questions of this article will be: how, and to which extent, contemporary long-prose in Portuguese is indebted to the Portuguese and the Brazilian modernist movements? How much does it owe to an eventual international, or world-modernism which, irradiating from more central languages of the World Literary System, dialogues separately with its different (semi-)peripheral regions? And, finally: does a distinctive modern literary voice in the Portuguese-language novel exist, and which ingredients (devices, forms) are peculiar to it?