Água viva: orienta(liza)ção modernista

Abstract

The Brazilian modernist canon is usually associated to the writers who took part in the Week of Modern Art in 1922, whose works are analyzed considering structure as the main feature. This paper aims to analyze Água viva (1973), written by Clarice Lispector, a dissident modernist poet, by means of Taoism, philosophy that proposes the Tao, a heterogeneous unity, reminding a cyclical culture producer of strain. In Taoism, as in Chinese calligraphy, the shape is undone, giving back strength to the shapeless matter; features that enable a change in the Western way of dealing with art; emphasizing strength, instead of shape. This “Eastern heritage” may be found in the Brazilian artist Maria Martins (1894-1973), who wrote Ásia Maior: o planeta China (1958) and as in the Mexican writer Octavio Paz (1914-1998), author of Conjunciones y disyunciones (1969); works which will be essential to consider the East’s presence in Água viva. The increasing interest in the East influences on the cultural studies and it becomes a tool to the post- structuralist theories deal with post-modern hybridism. In this paper, the East will be useful to analyze Água viva, producing new connections with Brazilian modernism allowing different means of dissemination of this work and of this literary movement.