História e mitos indígenas em O Guesa: uma performance escrita da construção literária

Abstract

This article analyzes chant II of O Guesa, Sousândrade’s epic poem, focusing the relationship between the work and the historical moment in which it was produced. The poet confronts the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures to a substrate that is primarily symboliccultural indigenous. The poet develops his own understanding of the indigenous reality of the country at the time that the Indian, in the view of Romanticism, was a symbol of national identity. Sousândrade’s approach may be seen as part of the dialectical relationship between literature and society (CANDIDO, 2000), but its construction is a literary performance (RAVETTI, 2003), a narrative dialogue between History and myth.