Cora Coralina:estudo psicobiográfico à luz do conceito de aging self positivo

Abstract

This study employed the psychobiographical method, based on the approach proposed by Schultz (2005), to investigate the patterns of artistic expression in the personality of the writer Ana Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto, known as Cora Coralina, from the state of Goiás, Brazil. The analysis focused on the period beginning at age 65, when the author returned to her hometown, began making sweets, and intensified her literary production, culminating in the publication of her major works—although she had been writing since adolescence, public recognition only came after the age of 75. The methodological framework combined biographical sources and a representative set of poems, analyzed in light of the concept of the Positive Aging Self, which understands aging as an adaptive process supported by theories of personal control and internal self-organization. This approach made it possible to identify coping strategies used by the writer in old age, characterized by flexibility, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and self reinvention. The emerging categories from the analysis, identified by Ruth, Birren, and Polkinghorne (2018)—“To Live is to Achieve” and “To Live is to Struggle”—reveal a self in continuous reconstruction, whose artistic expressions not only challenged ageist stigmas but also redefined aging as a time of creation, resistance, and personal affirmation. By interweaving literature, aging, and psychology, this work contributes to expanding perspectives on old age, recognizing the symbolic and social value of narratives hat emerge from the margins and inscribe themselves at the center of culture.