Viagem ao país dos nefelibatas: the neorealist laughter of Joaquim Namorado

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of humor and laughter in the writing of the poet Joaquim Namorado, one of the leading figures of Portuguese neorea- lism. To this end, we analyze the poems in Viagem ao país dos nefelibatas, a book written at the late 1930s, initially planned as an autonomous work, but published as part of the collection Incomodidade (1945). Through irony, parody and sarcasm, the poetic collection presents texts in which the critical reading of literary tradition, Portuguese history, and culture raise corrosive questions to the Salazar regime and other forms of domination, while also serving as a form of resistance and struggle, in line with the tenets of the neorealist movement. Considering the thematic and stylistic radicalism proposed by the author at the height of the neorealism’s consolidation in Portugal, we aim to reflect on how such poetry, through the strategies enabled by the comic and the laughable, seeks to inquire into reality and confront the adversities of its historical time.