Ida e volta

This article addresses the morpholinguistic and stylistic devices underwriting Freyre’s writing as the notion of “lusotropicalism” is advanced, mainly in the travelogue Aventura e rotina (1953) and the accompanying volume Um brasileiro em terras portuguesas (1953). With a view to questioning the foundations as well as to reexamining the conditions of possibility of a number of national and transnational commonplaces, policies and discourses which, knowingly or unknowingly, are inspired or shaped by Freyre’s “lusotropicalism,” it will break down the use of metaphors, morpholinguistic tropes, and the simile carrying Freyre’s self-fashioning as a modern Luís de Camões. Freyre’s observations on the then Portuguese colonies are of importance only insofar as they help build up his own projection of a “mundo português” and a lusotropical “family” led by Brazil, as he disingenuously acquiesces that his journey (sponsored by the Portuguese Estado Novo) acquires a “significado quase político.”