Histórias na História : contribuições de Frei Vicente do Salvador para a literatura brasileira

Abstract

Vicente Rodrigues Palha, better known as Friar Vicente do Salvador, was born and lived in Bahia between late 14th and mid 15th centuries. He stood out for the leading role he played in his time, both in the religious milieu, as a Franciscan friar and also for having assumed various hierarchical positions within the Church, as well as for being the first Brazilian citizen to write a work of history about Brazil, entitled “Historia do Brasil” completed between 1627 and 1630. In this dissertation, we perform an accurate analysis of the work of Friar Vicente through the literature, seeking to demonstrate that his work has literary content, expanding, in this way, the perception of its purely historical character. It is possible to observe that Friar Vicente is concerned to produce a rich and varied textuality, which stands out in various moments of the work, in the stylistic aspect, in the fictional elements that tends towards the fantasy, in the insertion of popular stories and anecdotes, in the presence of myths and legends pertinent to the time of the great navigations and, above all, by nativism, an embryonic theme that were developed during the first centuries of Brazil’s occupation and culminated in the desire for a national literature, independent and protagonist in comparation to European production. For these reasons, “História do Brasil” was a text read extensively by the Brazilian literate elite in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as by Portuguese authors, what had provoked a strong impact on these social class. Thereby, we seek to highlight the importance of the book “História do Brasil”, not only as a historiographical document, but also as a work of literary content. For this rescue, we did a detailed research and we drew an editorial itinerary of the “História do Brasil”, which is detailed in the first chapter of this dissertation. We managed to find 10 editions of the work, however, all approached by the prism of history. Thus, this dissertation is justified, which, unlike these 10 impressions analyzes the “História do Brasil”, by the literary approach. Hence, this dissertation is divided into two major parts: chapters 1 and 2 reflect about the literary foundations of the work and chapter 3 makes a linguistic update of the original manuscript text produced by Frei Vicente. Particularly, chapter 1 is divided into two parts, the first on the biography of Friar Vicente do Salvador and the second on the itinerary of the printed editions of “História do Brasil”. Yet chapter 2 which is divided into four parts, we seek to address the literary foundations of the work, done by research and dialogue with literary critics and authors of the literature history who, in their texts, addressed the importance of literary aspects of Brazilian History which demonstrates nationalistic, stylistic and fictional characteristics, among others. Finally, chapter 3, we made a linguistic update of the work and brought the clarification of relevant aspects about the work of Friar Vicente in the form of footnotes. The intention here is to make it easier to read with contiguous consultation to the original text. We conclude the critical approach of “História do Brasil” with the final considerations, returning to the proposed objectives, what was achieved and also pointing out other research possibilities on the work of Friar Vicente do Salvador. This dissertation is completed with 24 annexes, which also touch on interesting topics of Brazilian History, highlighting the illustrations of the 14 editions of “História do Brasil”, and other materials that address curiosities that help in the theoretical foundation of this dissertation. This research demonstrated not only the relevance of “História do Brasil” for a literary analysis, but also its importance for Brazilian literature and its influence among literary authors and critics, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries.