New instability and symmetry: criticism and Neobaroque’s self-criticism

Abstract

This essay proposes an interpretation of the neobaroque from the perspective of the work of its main poet-thinkers: the Brazilian Haroldo de Campos, the French-Cuban Severo Sarduy and the Argentinean Arturo Carrera. Aiming at providing a criticism of the controversial category, the text investigates Sarduy´s reflection on the origins of the baroque, alongside with its contemporary incidence, and puts forward an interpretation of Carrera´s poetry as a paradoxal reading of the neobaroque, starting from the early 70’s, as a faithful disciple of Haroldo and Sarduy, up to the present time, through a “deliberated simplism” which would become his personal characteristic. Besides, the article looks back at the pioneering adoption of the term in the beginning of the Brazilian concretist movement, in the mid 50´s.