Abstract
This essay discusses the blessed strength of the poetics of the "minor" literature of Guimaraes Rosa and Osman Lins, two big vates of modern Brazilian literature. We discuss the role of laughter and comedy in some metalinguistic constructions of their works that reflect, each in its way, a worldview curiously close and accustomed to the principles of carnivalization and circus. Joy is, for these writers, the cornerstone of an aesthetics of the small and the insignificant; and of a deeply human ethics of life, death and renewal.
Keywords:
infancy; circus; comedy; fable; Guimarães Rosa; Osman Lins