TRADITIONS & CONTRADICTIONS: MODERNIST ROOTS OF SÉRGIO BUARQUE DE HOLANDA’S THOUGHT AND ROOTS OF BRAZIL (1936)

Abstract

The article examines the way in which the tensions and ambiguities of Brazilian modernism structure the textual body of the first edition of Raízes do Brasil, both from a historical and aesthetic point of view and from the architectural logic of the construction of the proposed argument. It proposes a close reading of the original 1936 edition, seeking to highlight the indivisibility of the aesthetic and political debates that seemed to fuel a kind of reckoning with modernism at a time when the movement was branching out into multiple and divergent tendencies. Special attention is paid to the aesthetic currents of modernism, as critiqued by Tristão de Athayde and D.H. Lawrence, and their implications for the young Sérgio Buarque’s thought.

Keywords
Modernism; Brazilian Social Thought; Roots of Brazil ; Sérgio Buarque de Holanda; Styles of Thoutght