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Abstract:

The article deals with one of the most significant phenomena of Portuguese literature of the 20^th century — Neorealism, which is considered as a special kind of “artistic community.” The paper examines the origins of the self-name “Neorealism”, the genesis of Neorealist prose, its continuity in relation to Portuguese Realism and Naturalism of the 19^th century, on the one hand, and to regionalism of the early 20^th century, on the other, as well as the principles of overcoming “outdated” literary tendencies. The specificity of Neorealism as a “new humanism” stands out more clearly in comparison with such contemporary phenomena as the prose of the Brazilian Northeast, the testimonial novel, and the social novel. The study of the evolution of Neorealism from the late 1930s to the early 1980s allows to state the expansion of its paradigm and to trace how, without abandoning their ideals and the principle of engagement, writers gradually moved away from the canons of early Neorealism and worked in a kind of “interference field” of Neorealism and other artistic systems in the 1960s. Revolutionary reportage novel of the mid-1970s and the “synthesis novel” of the early 1980s are considered as subsequent stages of evolution, during which recognizable topoi, motifs and genre conventions of Neorealist prose are transformed.

Keywords: Portuguese prose of the 20^th century, prefix “neo”, Neorealism, Realism, regionalism, Existentialism, synthesis novel.