The journal Literatura e Sociedade, linked to the Department of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature, of the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo, since its first issue, published in 1996, has focused on promoting, welcoming and publishing essays, lectures, testimonials, translations, reviews and interviews on fundamental issues of the literary phenomenon. The scope covers the theory of genres, the interface between literature and society, comparative literature, the relations between literature and other arts and areas of knowledge, the history of literature, great authors and great works, the methods and practices of literary criticism. The submissions of articles by PhD researchers, from Brazil and abroad, linked to the area of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature or related areas, are welcomed in continuous flow. The evaluation is done by peers indicated by the Editorial Committee. Since 2014, the journal's periodicity became semiannual.
Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Bibliografia de Roberto Schwarz, levantamento contou com contribuições de Maurício Reimberg.
Copyright (c) 2025 Edu Teruki Otsuka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
No seminário “USP 90 anos: Antonio Candido”, ocorrido em outubro de 2024, no departamento de Letras da FFLCH-USP, Paulo Arantes, falando sobre o livro Formação da literatura brasileira (1959), contou ter percebido com espanto que, entre colegas e mestres no histórico prédio da rua Maria Antonia, onde funcionava a Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras da USP, com exceção de duas ou três pessoas, o célebre livro não fora lido completamente tanto quanto faria supor a celeuma e os vários equívocos que causou (o mais famoso deles e síntese das discussões de uma década antes ficou sendo o livro O sequestro do barroco, de Haroldo de Campos, de 1989).
Copyright (c) 2025 Denilson Soares Cordeiro, Roberto Schwarz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Nesta seção transcrevemos alguns poemas e contos de Roberto Schwarz, originalmente publicados no suplemento “Folhetim”, da Folha de S. Paulo, e na revista Almanaque, entre 1978 e 1985. Os textos são todos posteriores à publicação de Corações veteranos (1974), livro que marca a produção mais característica do autor no terreno da criação literária, ao lado das peças A lata de lixo da história (1977) e Rainha Lira (2022).
Copyright (c) 2025 Roberto Schwarz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Conversa com Roberto Schwarz sobre Rainha Lira
Entrevista realizada no dia 14 de março de 2025, na residência do autor, em São Paulo (SP).
Copyright (c) 2025 Maurício Reimberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Arte e política: aspectos da prosa ficcional de Roberto Schwarz
Based on a fictional narrative by Roberto Schwarz, the essay aims to present and discuss the author's reflections and the author's literary productions on art and politics throughout the 1960s and 1990s.
critical and fictional production by Roberto Schwarz
Copyright (c) 2025 Ivone Daré Rabello https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
O sequestro da poesia de Roberto Schwarz
Roberto Schwarz is primarily recognized as a literary critic. However, his books and essays are frequently cited in articles, dissertations, theses, and books across various fields, including history, philosophy, education, communication, anthropology, sociology, and political science. Given this breadth, he stands among the most-cited authors in the Portuguese language. His two poetry books, however, have largely gone unnoticed, even among his acknowledged disciples. This article presents an account of the reception of Pássaro na gaveta and Corações veteranos.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ricardo Musse https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Roberto Schwarz em verso e prosa: confluências entre Corações Veteranos e “As ideias fora do lugar"
This text examines the interrelation between poetic production and essay writing in the work of Roberto Schwarz during the 1970s. More specifically, it focuses on the confluences between the poems in the book Corações veteranos(1974) — as well as those Schwarz published in the anthology 26 poetas hoje(1976) —and the essay “Misplaced Ideas” (first published in 1973 in the journal Estudos Cebrap, and later in the 1977 book To the Victor, the Potatoes). In a dynamic of mutual tensions and illuminations, poetry and essay establish an original field of forces, whose essayistic result became a landmark in Brazilian culture, while the poetic aspect remained in the background. Considered together, they simultaneously shed light on Schwarz’s aesthetic tour de force and his contradictory stance toward one of his main literary sources, Brazilian modernism.
Copyright (c) 2025 Leandro Pasini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Pobres heroínas de nossa gente: Macunaíma, mercadoria, dinheiro
This essay seeks to characterize the ways in which Mario de Andrade's book Macunaíma (1928) captures, in the implication between the archaic and the modern, the presence of money and the fetish of merchandise in the uneven and combined modernization of Brazil. In doing so, it aims to specify the "extraordinary final sadness" of this book as that of a "Brazilian novel", based on assumptions formulated by Roberto Schwarz.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ana Paula Pacheco https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
João Gilberto e o terreiro do samba (comentário à margem de alguns ensaios de Roberto Schwarz)
In the light of formulations by Roberto analyzes and interprets the form of two recordings made by João Gilberto in 1959 — “A felicidade” (Antonio Carlos Jobim/ Schwarz in five critical texts, the essay Vinicius de Moraes) and “O nosso amor” (Antonio Carlos Jobim/ Vinicius de Moraes). The recordings basically juxtapose João Gilberto's lyrical expression in an intimate setting with the collective manifestation in aterreiro do samba, explaining the distance between the two social places and leveling them out.In this sense, while João’s work was noted for controlling contradictions in such a way that conflicts did not emerge, the two recordings project a mode of coexistence in which the contrasts are ostentatious.
Copyright (c) 2025 Walter Garcia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
O intelectual e a celebridade: considerações sobre Roberto Schwarz, Frederico Fellini e Chico Buarque
This text aims to identify key moments in the essay “8½ de Fellini: o menino perdido e a indústria”, written by Roberto Schwarz in 1964, to test the productivity of its findings for an exercise in comparative literature, focused on a discussion of the novel Bambino a Roma (2024), by Chico Buarque. Our hypothesis is that the novel updates the figure of the intellectual identified by Schwarz in Fellini’s film, giving it a new perspective.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marcos Soares https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Faça você mesmo(a): forma objetiva — território de luta crítica
In the debates about late peripheral modernisation, Roberto Schwarz established the objective form (1991) as a construct that provides the rhythmic and invisible links between the socio-historical and aesthetic domains. According to Schwarz, it consists of a form that encompasses "a practical-historical substance" (1991) or, as he would later say, that acts as the "social nerve of the art form" (1997). By connecting the preexisting social experience and the aesthetically constructed form, the objective formfunctions as a social contract legitimising the aesthetic form. Socially and historically commissioned by a collective and impersonal subject, this construct distinguishes itself from postmodern eclecticism model, which does not connect itself to the historical process. The objective formoffers critical intelligibility before the historical-social matter only if and when, taken as an intrinsic form within the aesthetic sphere; in other words, the problem of the aesthetic condensation of social rhythms reasserts itself concretely and incessantly — in production and reception — whenever it is necessary to retrace the reciprocal links between artistic and socio-historical forms. Thus, the exercise of aesthetic intuition and critical reflection, in interaction with artwork materials, is crucial to the objectification and explicitness of the synthesis with the socio-historical matter — which, otherwise, is ungraspable in the intrinsic connections of perception and reflection with historical objectivity and dynamics. In short, some things only emerge in art, making it an indispensable tool for dialectical historical reflection. In this sense, this work seeks to revisit some critical responses that Brazilian art and architecture (Antonio Dias, Amilcar de Castro, and Mendes da Rocha) provided to the civil-military coup of 1964 and the accelerated late modernisation that followed. Finally, it also reexamines the contemporary installation Roda Gigante(2019, Carmela Gross) — a negative architectural construct that synthesised the tragic Brazilian moment under the ultraright rule with rare clarity and epic poignancy.
aesthetic condensation of social rhythms
Copyright (c) 2025 Luiz Renato Martins https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Um oco dentro do oco dentro do oco: duas sugestões para a interpretação da indústria cultural na periferia do capitalismo a partir da crítica dialética de Roberto Schwarz
This article proposes an analysis of the Cultural Industry in the periphery of capitalism, employing Roberto Schwarz's dialectical critique, based on two suggestions. Firstly, the text focuses on Schwarz's concept of "second-degree ideology," which posits that liberal ideas in Brazil function as a "social veneer" rather than a justification of reality. In the slave-owning context, ideologies do not describe reality but serve the whims of the masters and the gratitude of the favored. From this perspective, Schwarz presents a negative dialectical critique. Extending this perspective, the article argues that the Cultural Industry in Brazil operates analogously. It does not mask class antagonisms or incompatibilities but serves as a foundation for social relations of favor and dependence. This configuration transcends the mere falsity of ideas, exposing a reality where massification and sumptuous consumption contradictorily coexist, and the brutality of lowered wage conditions is met with gratitude as a liberation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Manoel Dourado Bastos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Cultura e política em Schwarz: a dialética como forma de intervenção e o impacto no movimento teatral brasileiro
This article analyzes how Roberto Schwarz's dialectical reflection, by articulating the spheres of culture and politics, influenced the debate of cultural workers, with an emphasis on the Brazilian theater movement, setting issues for debate and opening new perspectivesfor research. The essays “Culture and Politics, 1964-1969”, “Politics and Culture: Support for a PT Platform in 1982” and “Highs and Lows of Brecht's Current Times” stand out. The influence of Anatol Rosenfeld, through the scope of his theoretical production and the form of intervention in the debate of the theater environment, is highlighted, based on Schwarz's texts about the master. The article suggests that Schwarz's attention to Rosenfeld is in the order of learning, as is the case with Antônio Candido, from the perspective of an organic and consequential action, in constant dialogue with groups of intellectuals and artists, in a combative stance against fascism, and in direct confrontation with the 1964 coup. The emblematic impact of Schwarz's dialectical critique on later research in the Brazilian theaterfield is highlighted. The adherence to and interest in Schwarz's thought by the Landless Workers' Movement, here considered as a movement Fighting for land, for human rights and as a cultural movement, is also considered.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rafael Villas Bôas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Apropriações brechtianas na crítica de Roberto Schwarz: teatro épico e a função do leitor em Machado de Assis
This article explores how Bertolt Brecht’s ideas about epic theater may have influenced Roberto Schwarz’s interpretation of Machado de Assis, especially his view of the reader’s role in A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism (1990). The article argues that Roberto Schwarzidentifies a strategy in Machado’s prose analogous to Brecht’s estrangement effect. While Brecht breaks with theatrical illusion to provoke reflection, Machado destabilizes readers with an unreliable and ironic narrator, forcing them to question naturalized social relations. The analysis reveals that, when examining Machado, Roberto Schwarz implicitly mobilizes Brechtian categories (albeit in a negative sense). This demonstrates that both authors developed avant-garde forms of politicising art in different contexts.
Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Rivas Gagliardi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Quer ver? (Roberto Schwarz e a poesia pau Brasil)
The article examines the analytical and interpretive movements of the essay “A carroça, o bonde e o poeta modernista” [The Cart, the Tram and the Modernist Poet]. Closely following Roberto Schwarz’s arguments, it seeks to offer a consistent reading of his approach to Brazil-wood poetry, explaining how the critic’s reflection unravels Oswaldde Andrade’s poem, moving beyond the simple observation of the juxtaposition between backwardness and progress in “Pobre alimária” [Poor brute]. Additionally, the article explores the distinction established by Schwarz between the poetic effectiveness and the political limitations of Oswald’s project in the 1920s.
Copyright (c) 2025 Renan Nuernberger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Roberto Schwarz's literary criticism always presupposes a rigorous reconstruction of the historical context in which the works he deals with were written, with special attention to social and literary forms. This article seeks to highlight the way in which Schwarz reconstructs contexts and forms, using Benjamin's concept of the “monad” to explain the role of literary analysis in perceiving the social tensions of an era. In these tensions, class conflict configures dialectical movements between past and present and between ideas and practices, summarized by Schwarz in his well-known formula of “displaced ideas”. Without intending to reopen the debate generated by this formula, I intend to return here to the elements that clarify the conception of dialectics through which Schwarz thinksabout historical time and the interplay of social practices.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jorge Grespan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Based on a comparison of antipodal forms, a “critical device” suggested by Roberto Schwarz in “Competing Readings”,the essay proposes an analysis of the literary motif of idyll in Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881), by Machado de Assis, and in The Sentimental Education (1869), by Gustave Flaubert.
Copyright (c) 2025 Natasha Belfort Palmeira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This text presents and evaluates the significance of Roberto Schwarz's entry into Machado studies in the mid-1970s, highlighting his use of earlier criticism, the dialogue with his contemporaries, and the changes that his reading has produced and continues to produce on the work and figure of the writer.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hélio de Seixas Guimarães https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The essay seeks to reframe the significance of Kafka in Roberto Schwarz’s work by investigating the tensions that run through the two essays the Brazilian critic devoted to the Czech author, thereby opening aveiled debate in Schwarz’s work about the meaning of history.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tiago Ferro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Os incompatíveis andam de mãos dadas: categorias críticas e meditação histórico-formal na literatura brasileira
The article revisits four essays by Roberto Schwarz from the 1960s and 1970s that address the Brazilian peripheral experience within the world order, the functioning of imported ideas, and cultural and literary productions. It observes that, when articulated with the critic’s later work, these essays invite reflection on the impasses of the present — when incompatible elements that go hand in hand are spreading across the globe.
Copyright (c) 2025 Salete de Almeida Cara https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Crítica literária dialética, a uma hora dessas?
Taking into account some writings and observations of Roberto Schwarz since Que horas são? (1987), this article starts from his conception of topicality (in relation to artistic works and criticism) to examines the author's assessments of the potential of the dialectical program, given the contemporary context and aspects of recent Brazilian literature that appear refractory to this approach.
Copyright (c) 2025 Danielle Corpas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Roberto Schwarz is known for the way in which, through his criticism of Brazilian literature and/or culture, he presented a relatively original diagnosis of the process of national formation. To this end, he mobilized a notion of modernity that, in the view of some critics, was excessively idealized, establishing itself as a parameter from which the “absences” of the “real” Brazil were identified. Schwarz thus oscillated between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, precisely the antinomy he had sought to overcome. Without ruling out the possible relevance of these criticisms, the article defends the hypothesis that, if, in fact, Schwarz uses an ideal notion of modern ideologies, especially liberalism, it is because he takes them as “concepts” to be tense with historical-social objectivity, within the scope of a critique that claims to be “immanent.” The important thing, for the author, is to explore the mismatches between the theory and practice of the Brazilian elites, a gap that would reveal the type of ideological domination — in the “second degree” — and material established in the country from the 19th century onwards.
Copyright (c) 2025 Fabio M. Querido https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The idea of carrying out an anatomy of Roberto Schwarz finds its justification in the paradox that, while it is increasingly internationally acclaimed, the intelectual contexto in which such acclaim takes place is shaped by theoretical presuppositions and interpretative practices utterly at odds with the spirit of Schwarz’s writings. (The article form itself is already witness to this.) By characterizing the way Schwarz’s critical imagination works, rather than insisting on its conceptual content, the intention here is to facilitate its transmission as a dialectical craft, which is averse to sheer analytical rigor, as the cucumbers herein discussed attest.
Copyright (c) 2025 Fabio Akcelrud Durão https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Roberto Schwarz: a literatura mundial fora do lugar
This paper tries to situate Roberto Schwarz's fundamental contribution for the debate on world literature. In order to so, it presents a brief survey of the main contending positions in theoretical discussions and shows the productivity of his thought to the project of an engaged world literature.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Elisa Cevasco https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Roberto Schwarz: uma revolução silenciosa (e brasileira) na teoria crítica
This essay highlights the scope of Roberto Schwarz’s work and its implications forMarxist critical theory, as well as for post-colonial studies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Neil Larsen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
O irmão alemão: a ficção como método crítico
O comentário se concentra em analisar a presença da documentação primária na composição da narrativa ficcional. Busquei assinalar como as diferentes dimensões do passado histórico interagem criticamente neste romance de formação, em que a memória familiar converge com a memória da nação brasileira. Como exemplo, me detenho nos estigmas de judaísmo e de cristão-novo, invocado pelo narrador como uma questão socialmente perturbadora e singular.
Copyright (c) 2024 Iris Kantor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Funções do lirismo nas canções de cena: Aspectos da dramaturgia musical de Chico Buarque
Este artigo discute o papel do lirismo nas canções de cena de Chico Buarque a partir de exemplos tomados às peças Roda Viva (1967), Calabar. O elogio da traição (1973), Gota dágua (1975) e Ópera do Malandro (1978).
Copyright (c) 2024 Maria Silvia Betti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A cena da contradição no teatro de Chico Buarque: o gesto das canções
Este artigo discute o trabalho dramatúrgico de Chico Buarque, e as relações que o autor tece entre canção e gesto. Para isso, são estudadas quatro canções de cena, Sem Fantasia, Fortaleza, Gota d’Água e Pedaço de mim, sendo uma de cada peça escrita por Chico: Roda Viva, Calabar, Gota d’Água e Ópera do Malandro. As canções são analisadas em seu contexto ficcional e em seus desdobramentos críticos a respeito da vida social brasileira.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jé Oliveira , Nina Nussenzweig Hotimsky https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A grande Meretriz na Ópera do Malandro: entre civilização e barbárie
O artigo faz uma leitura benjaminiana/brechtiana da peça musical de Chico Buarque de 1978 buscando esclarecer o teatro como “fábrica de ilusões” em que a atriz/meretriz tem um papel simbólico dentro de imagens contraditórias entre civilização e barbárie alusivas a um país de fachada nas ditaduras. Ao atualizar as situações de autoritarismo dos anos da ditadura Vargas, com a industrialização, e nos anos de agro-negócio pós-bolsonaristas remonta-se aos arruinados inícios da urbanização para entender um jogo simbólico entre dureza e docilidade, ruinas e modas, gerando sucessivas mudanças capitalistas de cenário e escancarando o teatro como artifício montado para iludir, e ao mesmo tempo, para despertar.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ana Luiza Andrade https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0