Uninhibitedness and contestation: an interpretation of Eduardo Lourenço’s essay on the “New Literature”

Abstract

In this article, I present an interpretation of the essay "A Free-spirited Literature or the Children of Álvaro de Campos," first published in October 1966 in the journal O Tempo e o Modo, where Eduardo Lourenço defines and analyzes a literary phenomenon that decisively contributes to the transformation process that Portuguese literature and culture underwent in the second half of the 20th century. Through a meticulous bibliographical survey, I aim to contextualize Eduardo Lourenço's essay within the literary and cultural landscape of the time it was published, interpret it in light of the key readings that have emerged since its publication, and compare it with other perspectives on the same literary phenomenon. Revisiting some of the passages from the essay, I analyze the "New Literature" in its relationship with neorealism, which was still dominant when the new fiction writers emerged, attempting to define what sets it apart: its moral dimension. Finally, I elucidate what I believe to be the core of Eduardo Lourenço's argumentation – the belated reclamation of a tradition of contestation that operates in the "national subconscious" – and provide two brief considerations regarding this theme, emphasizing, on one hand, the specificity of the liberating impulse that traces back to Álvaro de Campos (although Eduardo Lourenço acknowledges its preexistence in other texts) and, on the other hand, the innovative nature of the uninhibited prose, the "condition of becoming" that, according to Rosa Maria Martelo, is intrinsic to every phenomenon of literary descent.