Abstract
Based on the poem “Abre-te boca e proclaima”, from the book Lira Paulistana (1945), by Mário de Andrade, this article analyzes the relationship between intellectual production and censorship in the Vargas era, as one of the echoes of the Second World War in the Brazilian context. The Vargas era was marked by an authoritarian government that resorted to censorship and propaganda to maintain its populist political functioning, by co-opting intellectuals to make up the civil service. Exercising a dual function, many authors used different artifices to publish their works or made use of different forms of silencing to reconcile their functions, as the State was also the possible way to achieve the collective good. Thus, literary writing needed caution and wisdom to be, at the same time, a weapon against the Vargas government, and a path to the democratization of culture in the country.
Keywords:
Vargas Era; censorship; silencing; Mário de Andrade