Versions of the Modern in the Amazon: Literature and folklore in the works and lives of Juvenal Tavares and Bruno de Menezes (1888-1931)

ABSTRACT

The article approaches the connection between literature and folklore in the works and lives of the paraense writers Luiz Demétrio Juvenal Tavares (1850-1907) and Bruno de Menezes (1893-1963) based on their own writings, on the ones published by their biographers, and on other authors’ texts. Their careers encompass different phases in which efforts were done in favor of the renewal of literature in the Amazon, effectively in relation to social and political matters from their time. The characteristic of their works was the combination of political-ideological (anarchism and socialism) and artistic (naturalist and symbolist literary styles) European references with the vindication of a Brazilian and Amazonian literature oriented to social critics and to focusing black and mestizo characters from urban and rural settings. The unfolding of this proposition is here investigated as versions of the modern in the end of the 19^th century and the first decades of the 20^th, considering the claim of a sense of literary innovation.

Keywords:
Amazon; folklore; literature; Juvenal Tavares; Bruno de Menezes