O simbolismo brasileiro como ruptura?

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the possibilities of understanding Brazilian symbolism as a particular moment in the constitution of Brazil’s modern poetry, considering Cruz e Sousa’s work, the main poet of this movement, as a paradigm of subsequent structural transformations in Brazilian literature. This way, based on recent considerations that review the role of Brazilian avant-gardes as a fundamental point of aesthetic rupture, especially based on the work of authors who participated in or orbited the Semana de Arte Moderna (1922), we seek to highlight elements already present in fin-de-siècle poetics, in which they showed signs of understanding and incorporating elements of modern poetry. Thus, it is possible to see that aspects that are still dispersed or not considered in the evaluation of Brazilian symbolism can open paths for a review of its role in Brazilian literary historiography.