Manaus como obra de arte: uma genealogia da literatura produzida no Amazonas

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand how literaryL production is represented in the Amazon, specifically referred to the city of Manaus, in the field of Brazilian literature. To achieve this objective, six writers were selected who published in the period between 1976 and 2000, and who considered themes concerning Manaus. Field notion was taken into account, according to Bourdieu’s (1989) conception, which perceives it as a sort of conceptual stenography of a research object construction mode. The notion of field worked as a sign, since it oriented to verify that the object of reflection was not isolated from a set of relations from which the essential of its properties is removed, making it possible to perceive that its functioning occurs as in a network of relations formed by certain agents. The object of reflection corresponds to the representation of the Amazonian literary production, with the intention of carrying out a sociological analysis of the literary field concerning the city of Manaus. However, the idea of a precursor being erased, and considering the object of reflection at different moments in history, according to the time cut provided by the year of publication of the first and last book of literature selected for analysis. The books by Silvio Romero (1980 [1888]), History of Brazilian Literature, by José Veríssimo (1963[1916]), History of Brazilian Literature: from Bento Teixeira 1601 to Machado de Assis, 1908, were the first instrument of investigation, a choice justified by the fact that they were the first writings in Brazil to offer elements such as: concepts of literature, subjects of which literature is appropriate for representation, literary genres used in the field, the type of language employed and the temporal landmarks that characterize the styles of the period, which are the periodizations. The first chapter was written from a bibliographical analysis of the two books History of Brazilian Literature. The objective was to make a critical reading of these two books in order to understand how the literary productions regarding the city of Manaus are articulated to the books of the classifiers Silvio Romero and José Veríssimo. In the second chapter, a literary and sociological analysis of the books published between 1976 and 2000 was carried out, with themes related to Manaus and different literary genres. He objective in this chapter was to identify the subjects present in each book and the profile of each writer in terms of his literary life in the field of intellectual production. In the third chapter, the objective was to distinguish, among the selected authors, the prevailing representations and the privileged themes, joining to this the understanding of each writer's professional trajectory, as well as their social relationship in the field of literary intellectual production, with regard to the instances of legitimization present in Manaus. In the fourth chapter, the objective was to highlight one or two central themes in order to verify if there is a consolidated interpretative scheme, from which the writers analyze the city of Manaus (climate, rain season, geographical position, waters, forest, monuments, social issues), that is, the explanatory components of their interpretations. In this way, I have constructed, in the analyses made in the chapters, a critique of the simplistic and unilateral images made by some (or some) writer(s), who have been present in common sense discourse over time and who have often perpetuated themselves historically. I gave space to the observation of the expression of the same reality in different discourses, since I was able to analyze a group of six writers who showed a diversity of coexisting and, in a certain sense, competing points of view regarding the theme of Manaus. Key-words: Literary field. Manaus. Amazonian Literature. Manaus. Brazilian Literature.