Narrating to deny: the search for a high and pure love or the intransitivity of the verb to love

Abstract

Amar, verbo intransitivo: idi?lio, a novel by Ma?rio de Andrade published in 1927, and Sob o olhar malicioso dos tro?picos a novel by Barreto Filho published in 1929, are two works that, despite their temporal proximity, could not be further apart in their aesthetic proposition: the first, affiliated with Sa?o Paulo modernism of 1922; the second to the spiritualist movement. The purpose of this article to place these disparate works side by side is the theme they share: sexual morality - or, put differently, the impossibility of love and sex. Thus, Ma?rio de Andrade’s novel protagonist Fra?ulein Elza, hired to perform the sexual initiation of Carlos, son of a traditional family in Sa?o Paulo, defines herself as a “love teacher”. While in Barreto Filho’s novel it is a leer that is the core of the narrative, and its presence is imperative from beginning to end - although its protagonist Andre? Lins does not aim at anything besides elevated love. They are, therefore, two novels tensioned between love and sex, in which to seek the first, the second is denied, and provide an interesting perspective on the fictionalization of sexual morality that will occupy the pages of our prose in the following years.