Pacto e linguagem nas Memórias sentimentais de João Miramar

Memórias sentimentais de João Miramar (1924) is generally considered Oswald de Andrade’s most experimental work of fiction. Though it incorporates the futurist ideas the author came into contact with on his first trip to Paris, it is unclassifiable in terms of literary genre. Even with such an extensive bibliography devoted to it, its unique artistry remains a challenge to the critic. This essay aims to analyze the composition of this book as “a living portrait of our social machine”—in the words of the conservative Machado Penumbra, author of the supposed preface—whilst examining the link that joins memory and language in Oswald’s work.