A saudade: periódico do Grêmio Literário Português no Rio de Janeiro: um estudo sobre a construção literária de espaços

Abstract

This Thesis has as research object the periodical A Saudade of the Grêmio Literário Português no Rio de Janeiro (association of Portuguese emigrateds in the then Brazilian Empire capital). The periodical was published weekly in two series; the first from August 5th, 1855 to February 8th, 1857, and the second from April 15th, 1861 to October 5th, 1862. This journal is composed by studies of literature, philosophy, theology, history and biography, as well as by novels, chronicles, plays and poems. Through A Saudade, the Grêmio sought to give visibility and social recognition to its members. The actions of periodical publication participate of a historical context marked by the construction of national identities (both Portuguese and Brazilian), by the literary romantic movement, by the fomentation (through symbolic narratives and institutional actions) of the Portuguese emigration to Brasil, by the multiplicity of social types and displacement experiences, as well as by a system of recommendations that favored commercial activity in Portuguese hands in Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century. This last point promoted the emergence, on the one hand, of associative spaces and, on the other, anti-Portuguese feelings and discourses. Undertanding that the work of art participates in an intermittent political game, this Thesis proposes a reading of A Saudade as a producer of spaces. So, the multiplicity of publications is presented from the perspective that certain discursive and imagectic “niches” are perceptible. Like as the narratives about the journal’s functioning, the figurations os the profiles that compose the association, the saudosa sensitivity and the distant homeland that shapes the Portuguese emigrated identity. These are elements, which in this Thesis work as axis, that pulse from the A Saudade’s pages and participate in the artistic and political movemnts of Rio de Janeiro society in the second half of the 19th century.