Similarly to other Brazilian cities of the period, in the first years of the 20th Century, Curitiba - the capital city of Paraná - has undergone a significant process of transformations that affected both its material and socio-cultural spheres. A grammar has been built in order to nominate this new universe: leisure, pleasure, adventure, hedonism; but also individualism, estrangement, indifference, multitude, insecurity, risk. This article's intent is to highlight the different ways of perusing modernization and modernity and their representations in the production of discourses, especially the literary ones. We understand that they are especially responsible for the lexicon that tries to represent the new urban experiences, sociabilities and esthesia.
literature; city; esthesia; modernity