Thiago de Mello: fortuna crítica (1951-1960)

Abstract

This master‘s dissertation presents the first phase of the wealth of critical acclaim for Thiago de Mello. Following a general survey of the critical texts on the poet‘s work, a decision was taken to adopt as a review corpus only those produced from 1951 to 1960. This phase involves the critique of such books as Silêncio e Palavras (1951), Narciso Cego (1952), A Lenda da Rosa (1955) and Vento Geral (1984); the other part was uncovered through searches into databanks, libraries, public domain private collections. As a theoretical assumption, the concepts used by Pascale Casanova in A República Mundial das Letras, that reviews the tensions in the relationships between author literary critic, the notion of national and universal writer, the concepts of modern and classical and the common difficulties of a greater part of writers to impose themselves within the literary space. The background of the different profiles of the Brazilian literary criticism as presented in the studies by Afrânio Coutinho, Antonio Candido and Flora Süssekind was deemed necessary on account of the nature of the research work. The critical works by Álvaro Lins, Carlos Castelo Branco, Emanuel de Moraes, Waldemar Baptista de Salles, Gilberto Freyre, Sérgio Milliet, Manuel Bandeira, Alcântara Silveira, Virgínius da Gama e Melo and Santos Moraes have been included in the results of the research work. The review of such texts unveils relevant aspects of the dynamics of the national literary system.