José Cardoso Pires' O Delfim or Literature as a Counterpoint between Libertines and Marialvas

Abstract

This paper examines the categories proposed by José Cardoso Pires in the essay Cartilha do Marialva (1963) through the counterpoint between two central figures in O Delfim (1968): Tomás Palma Bravo and the writer figure, who simultaneously fulfills the roles of author and narrator within the novel’s plot. The central argument focuses on the author-narrator figure, analyzed within the framework of the libertine individuality category outlined in the Cartilha do Marialva, which operates as the perfect counterpoint to the marialvismo embodied by Tomás. The analysis emphasizes the pivotal role of the literary institution in shaping the tension between these two interlocutors and in structuring the novel itself as a hypothesis for mythologizing the engineer’s image. This mythologization, in turn, underpins the construction of the author-narrator as an alternative locus of power through memory and literary transfiguration.