Opera or Circus? Drama and Cultural Lag in the View of Lima Barreto

Abstract

In the novel Vida e Morte de Morte de M. J. Gonzaga de Sá [Life and Death of M. J. Gonzaga de Sá], Brazilian author Lima Barreto sets up an important discussion on the relation between the theater produced in the city of Rio de Janeiro (from mid nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century) and its supposed civilizing and modernizing role that Brazilian intellectuals assigned to it at that time. The aim of this paper is to closely examine these assumptions on the role of the theater in order to compare them to Lima Barreto’s critical view, in which the author reveals the temporary nature of Brazilian’s peripheric and dependant modernity. Thus, I also take a close look on passages from Barreto’s Diário Íntimo [Personal Journal] and on a few of his chronicles that have similar questions to the ones brought up by Vida e Morte.