Trilhando com a imaginacao: Uma visao romântica do banditismo na literatura do nordeste brasileiro
Despite the popularization of the bandit figure in Brazilian literature and the importance of literary works on the Cangaco, there is no comprehensive study of this genre to date. This dissertation attempts to fill that gap in literary scholarship by examining representative nineteen, and twentieth,...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English Portuguese |
| Published: |
Ann Arbor
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
2004
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Despite the popularization of the bandit figure in Brazilian literature and the importance of literary works on the Cangaco, there is no comprehensive study of this genre to date. This dissertation attempts to fill that gap in literary scholarship by examining representative nineteen, and twentieth, century Brazilian works based on the lives of historical bandits. The study is particularly interested in showing how these novels blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, and how their romanticization of outlaws has implicit social and political ends. The methodology for the thesis is derived in part from British historian Eric Hobsbawm, who foregrounds social, political and economic factors in the analysis of banditry in his works Primitive Rebels (1959) and Bandits (1969). My analysis of the novels is heavily influenced by Brazilian literary critics Afrânio Coutinho and Antonio Cândido, who examine literature in its socio-economic and historical contexts.
The dissertation is divided into two parts. Part one provides an overview of the romantic bandit, a figure that gained universal attention with the Sturm and Drang and, in particular, the early works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. This part also focuses on specific Brazilian phenomena, especially the concept of Cangaco and factors associated with it (latifundio, "coronelismo," interfamily feuds, social injustice, and droughts). Part two, the core of the work, is divided into four chapters, each of which focuses on one novel: O Cabeleira (1876) by Franklin Tavora, Lucas, o Demonio Negro (1957) by Sabino de Campos, Os Brilhantes (1895) by Rodolfo Teofilo, and Os Cangaceiros (1914) by Carlos Dias Fernandes. In these novels, the authors embellish the figure of the outlaw, anticipating Hobsbawm's concept of the social bandit or "noble robber." By creating such heroes, Brazilian writers on banditry not only forged a national symbol but also a literary genre that greatly influenced later authors such as Jose Americo de Almeida and Jose Lins do Rego. The vitality of those early novels continues today. |
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| Bibliography: | Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-05, Section: A, page: 1800. Chair: Darlene J. Sadlier. |
| ISBN: | 9780496811045 0496811045 |