Literary Criticism and History of Literature

Research Projects:

Contrasts of modernity: history, theory, and critique

Description: Study of the historical dynamics of formation, establishment and dissolution of the Modern Project in Brazil, considering the different moments of this process, as well as the most significant literary works.

Professor in charge: Iumna Maria Simon (iumna@usp.br)

 

The frivolous retradicionalization. The case of poetry.

Description: The focus of this research is to discuss the phenomenon of the retradicionalization of contemporary poetry, seeking to place it in the context of Brazilian literature and to identify historical and social trends of this modern-conservantism. It is a retradicionalization able to collect the decomposing forces of modernism to turn them into conventions, files, fixed forms and intertextual readings.

Professor in charge: Iumna Maria Simon (iumna@usp.br)

 

Estrangement

Description: Study of the procedure of estrangement in literary works and its critical description.

Professor in charge: Aurora Fornoni Bernardini (bernaur2@yahoo.com.br)

 

Perspectives of 19th-century Brazilian literature

Description: This research project has as its objective the study of 19th-century authors and works considering the fierce literary debate held in that period, when different aesthetic conceptions questioned the nature and function of the various genres that were being created. To achieve this goal, the project will contemplate two fronts. Firstly, analyse 19th-century critical reflection, in an effort to delineate the theoretical and conceptual universe of their authors. Here are inserted not only the study of critique and of the controversies that marked the 19th century, but also of paratexts inserted by writers in their works and textbooks of poetics and rhetoric. Secondly, the project will analyse the 19th century literary production, situating it within the cultural context of the period. In both cases emphasis will be given to primary sources and to the study of themes and/or works that have been poorly explored by Brazilian critical tradition.

Professor in charge: Eduardo Vieira Martins (eduardovm@usp.br)

 

Representations of space: the works of Antonio Candido and the novel of Guimarães Rosa

Description: Two essays shall be prepared, the first one on the importance of the study of space in the works of Antonio Candido, the second one on the representation of a space modality in the novel The devil to pay in the backlands, by Guimarães Rosa.

Professor in charge: Joaquim Alves de Aguiar (joaquim.aguiar@usp.br)