The Intellectual Reconstruction of Brazilian Naturalism

A Theoretical Shift in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article analyzes the interpretative shift that occurred in Brazilian literary criticism from the 1950s onward, when naturalism ceased to be read solely as a servile imitation of European aesthetics—a view that had prevailed from the 1880s to the 1950s and that I refer to as the “paradigm of imitation.” In investigating this process of reconfiguration, the article identifies the gradual incorporation of historical-sociological perspectives, particularly influenced by the development of the Social Sciences in Brazil. Among others, the contributions of Werneck Sodré, Brito Broca, Afrânio Coutinho, Antônio Candido, and Flora Süssekind are highlighted for proposing approaches capable of recognizing singularities in the assimilation and expression of Brazilian naturalist fiction. The central hypothesis is that, although this theoretical turn did not fully eliminate the earlier paradigm, it introduced new interpretative possibilities that remain influential in contemporary criticism, opening paths to consider naturalism as a more complex expression than a mere “agencyless copy.”