Do mito do senhor benevolente à mulatização: o negro no pensamento estético-político de Oswald de Andrade

Abstract

This theoretical and bibliographical work seeks to problematize the complex thought developed by Oswald de Andrade on the black issue. Therefore, it proposes a critical reading of a poem from the book Pau-Brasil (1925), of a political speech given before the Brazilian Black Front and selected fragments of journalistic essays published in the 1930s and 1940s. The readings indicate that by constructing a triumphalist vision of the Brazilian colonial and slaveholding past after the Week of Modern Art in 1922, the intellectual anticipated arguments that would be used by defenders of racial democracy, a fallacy that would be challenged by new generations of intellectuals uncommitted to the traditional structures of the nation.