Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Volume 3
- 1 The literary historiography of Brazil
- 2 Colonial Brazilian literature
- 3 Brazilian poetry from the 1830s to the 1880s
- 4 Brazilian poetry from 1878 to 1902
- 5 The Brazilian theatre up to 1900
- 6 Brazilian fiction from 1800 to 1855
- 7 The Brazilian novel from 1850 to 1900
- 8 Brazilian fiction from 1900 to 1945
- 9 Brazilian prose from 1940 to 1980
- 10 The Brazilian short story
- 11 Brazilian poetry from 1900 to 1922
- 12 Brazilian poetry from Modernism to the 1990s
- 13 The Brazilian theatre in the twentieth century
- 14 Brazilian popular literature (the literatura de cordel)
- 15 Literary criticism in Brazil
- 16 The essay: architects of Brazilian national identity
- 17 The Brazilian and the Spanish American literary traditions: a contrastive view
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
1 - The literary historiography of Brazil
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Volume 3
- 1 The literary historiography of Brazil
- 2 Colonial Brazilian literature
- 3 Brazilian poetry from the 1830s to the 1880s
- 4 Brazilian poetry from 1878 to 1902
- 5 The Brazilian theatre up to 1900
- 6 Brazilian fiction from 1800 to 1855
- 7 The Brazilian novel from 1850 to 1900
- 8 Brazilian fiction from 1900 to 1945
- 9 Brazilian prose from 1940 to 1980
- 10 The Brazilian short story
- 11 Brazilian poetry from 1900 to 1922
- 12 Brazilian poetry from Modernism to the 1990s
- 13 The Brazilian theatre in the twentieth century
- 14 Brazilian popular literature (the literatura de cordel)
- 15 Literary criticism in Brazil
- 16 The essay: architects of Brazilian national identity
- 17 The Brazilian and the Spanish American literary traditions: a contrastive view
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Literature in Brazil began to exist from the moment of the discovery of the country by the Portuguese in 1500, commemorated by a literary event in the broadest sense of the word: the Carta by Pero Vaz de Caminha, scribe of Pedro Alvares Cabral’s fleet, reporting the finding of new land and its inhabitants to King Manuel. However, the first title that legitimized the identity of literature as Brazilian appeared after three centuries of colonization, at the time when political subordination to Portugal had been severed. For only after Independence was proclaimed on September 7, 1822 would literary historiography begin to appear in Brazil, concomitant with the implantation of Romanticism, to which it owes its legitimacy, and in direct relation to the appearance of a national historiography. Amounting to a second beginning, that legitimacy conferred a lawful existence on literature as opposed to its earlier de facto existence during the colonial period. Historiography as the writing of history thereby carried out the singular recuperation of the past of which it is capable in accord with its founding function – a function more pronounced in the countries to which European colonialism gave rise, as in those of the Portuguese and Spanish Americas.
A consequence of political separation, the ambiguous relationship between the Americas and Europe, at times antagonistic and at other times identifying with the earlier state of dependence on the external capitals, disposed the countries of the Americas to the writing of their own history, capable of recuperating the past as a long and continuous phase of preparation for nationhood, highlighting the struggles or the yearning for emancipation during the colonial period of subjugation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature , pp. 11 - 46Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
References
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