Mário de Sá-Carneiro and the Parisian party of the Belle Époque

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7917.2016v21n2p21

The episode of the American’s party in A Confissão de Lúcio conveys the magical atmosphere of the “Belle Époque” in Paris. The party seems to play a double role in the novel: a theatrical role and a learning role. On the one side, that magical and orgiastic party exemplifies the notion of “lavishness”, far away from the constraints and strict rules of the working world. On the other side, one can see this party as an unexpected amalgam of pleasure and intellectual aptitude, of the orgiastic excesses and the spiritual quest, as evoked in Plato’s Symposium. This erotic sophistication of the language is not far from the sinuous lines, the volutes and the ornamentation proper of “Art Nouveau”, the famous style of the “Belle Époque”. The impressionist colours, Baudelaire’s correspondence of sensations, combined with a double experience of excesses and subtlety present a mise-en-scène of voluptuousness, following the model imagined by this strange woman – to an extent, Sá-Carneiro’s spokeswoman. Like so many other young artists, Mário de Sá-Carneiro came to Paris at the dawn of the 20^th century to enjoy Modernity.