João Alphonsus: modernismo, modernidade, animalidade

Abstract

This work follows two paths. Firstly, we seek an overview of João Alphonsus' production and participation in the Minas Gerais modernism. In this sense, we analyze some of the first explicitly modernist texts published by the author in periodicals throughout the 1920s. At the same time, we aim to briefly analyze these press vehicles themselves as components of the intellectual life of writers from Minas Gerais at the time of our avant-garde, with emphasis on Diário de Minas and Novella Mineira, as well as the transit of these young artists between ideas and spaces in the recent capital Belo Horizonte. Thus, we pursue to outline João Alphonsus's position in this movement that most impacted the beginning of the 20th century in Brazilian literature. This dissertation’s second path is to investigate the writing of animality. To this end, we promote a reading of the author of “Sardanapalo” as an artist imbued with a strong sense of modernity, choosing the short story “O homem na sombra ou a sombra no homem” as an unavoidable example. Based on these ideas, the writing of animality is explored by analyzing the major moments of encounter between the human and the non-human in João Alphonsus’ work. This involves a reading of his short stories and some episodes of two novels (Totônio Pacheco and, primarily, Rola-moça), interpreting them though modern and contemporary ideas about animality.