Cartas de edificação e cartas de negócios e impertinências : fontes para a reconstituição do provincialato do padre Alexandre de Gusmão, S.J. (1629-1724) no Brasil

• Main Author: César A. M. Miranda de Freitas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade do Porto 2017-08-01
• Series: CEM: Cultura, Espaço & Memória
• Subjects: Father Alexandre de Gusmão; Jesuits; letters; mission
• Online Access: http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/16278.%20M.%20Miranda%20de%20Freitas.pdf

This article analises the epistolary correspondence of Father Alexandre de Gusmão, provincial of Brazil (1684 -1688 and 1694 -1697), as a historical source for the reconstruction of the religious, political, cultural and educational framework of the late sixteenth and early seventies. Contextualized in the rhetorical discourse that shapes the Jesuit epistolary writing, the reading of these mostly unpublished letters deposited in the ARSI contributes to the construction of knowledge about the catechetical and evangelizing action of the Jesuits in Brazil, designed to build internal and external readership of the Jesuit Society. Jesus. At the same time, these letters, written by Father Gusmão or sent to him, expose personal conflicts and narrate in detail the business and the impertinences observed in the contexts of mission or in the interior of the jesuits houses and colleges, of reading reserved for the superiors of the Order.