BDSL-Klassifikation: 04.00.00 Allgemeine Literaturgeschichte > 04.06.00 Beziehungen einzelner Völker zur deutschen Literatur
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This article shows how the genre Bildungsroman (self-development novel) has been assimilated to the Brazilian literary tradition. Through the examples of Cristina Ferreira Pinto's "O 'Bildungsroman' feminino" ("The female novel of development") and Eduardo de Assis Duarte's "Jorge Amado e o 'Bildungsroman' proletário" ("Jorge Amado and the proletarian novel of development"), this article focuses the dynamic process by means of which a typical European genre has been assimilated by a young South-American literary tradition.
The Recife’s School was a Brazilian movement during the last quarter of the 19th century, whose main goals were to inform the Empire Court of provincial problems and introduce Brazil to ideas and theories of German philosophers. The first history of Brazilian literature was written in 1888 by Sílvio Romero and is considered part of this movement. According to this work, Brazil should be connected to German thought. Romero’s reception of the German authors is not passive; he engages in dialogue through his text by connecting, criticizing and elaborating upon his references. The autonomy of thought he proves in this process is the same autonomy he demands from Brazilian intellectualists. In order to develop the talents inherent to Brazil, he believes they should widen their cultural horizons, instead of only being dependent on French culture. Only then Brazil would be able to occupy a position equal amongst developed nations. Romero’s conception of race and his idea, that it is possible to include the totality of Brazilian literature in his work are both out of date. However, in the História da Literatura Brasileira there are methodological aspects in common with the modern theories on writing histories of literature, such as the choice of texts not only according to aesthetics criterions and the interdisciplinarity, because the author relates biology, sociology, economy, and politics with literature.
Fifteen years after his death in 1991 one can trace a certain tendency to turn the person and personality of Herbert Caro into a legendary figure where his work as a recognized translator mingles with episodes related to his passion for music as well as his specific kind of humour. It is therefore of no surprise that Caro himself turned into a literary character of the novel As Confissões de Lúcio by Brazilian writer Fernando Monteiro.