Subvisible Meaning: Structural Invention in the Work of 5 Brazilian Novelists

Brazilian literature in the 20th century is marked by significant structural experiment and innovation which has not been fully identified by critics, for the probable reason that rendering these experiments effectively invisible to reader reception may contribute to their success. By employing cross-domain structural concepts, which may embed subvisible meaning, the author is enabled to explore and test many forms of prospectively moderated reader reception and response, which may be emotional, moral, perceptual or even purely philosophical. This study seeks, first, to review the complex factors which ignited Brazil's abrupt campaign toward literary innovation, cultural independence, and creative originality within a search for national identity, most urgently in the first decades of the 20th century. From this framework we will explore, specifically, how five of Brazil's major novelists appear to have been inspired by these same cultural forces, experimenting with both novel creative strategies and original methods of composition, to test the edge of what literature might yet bring to our understanding of the human experience.