Benedito Nunes and the Modern Brazilian Literary Criticism (1946-1969)

• Main Author: Maria de Fátima do Nascimento
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi 2013-08-01
• Series: Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1981-81222013000200019&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=pt

The research analyzes the literary criticism of Benedito Nunes and is divided in two parts. It is based on a variety of textual genres (attempts to write novels, poems, aphorisms, chronicles on science, poetry and philosophy, interviews, criticism on poetry and novels). In other words, on the first texts of Nunes, published in the newspaper “Folha do Norte” (1946-1951), where he started the career as literary critic, in the magazines “Encontro” (1948) and “Norte” (1952), and in other Brazilian newspapers, such as “Jornal do Brasil”, “O Estado de São Paulo” and “O Estado de Minas Gerais”. Nunes’ first books are also analyzed, “O mundo de Clarice Lispector” (1966) and “O dorso do tigre” (1969), for which he was acclaimed one of the exponents of literary criticism in the second half of the 20th century in Brazil, mainly of authors that published from the decade of 1940 on, namely, Clarice Lispector, Guimarães Rosa and João Cabral de Melo Neto. The compilation of texts published in newspapers enables the identification of the main readings of Benedito Nunes, which were incorporated to his work, such as the Christian philosophers, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Pascal and Søren Kierkegaard, who will be constant in the writings of Nunes. The compilation also makes possible to trace the intellectual trajectory of Nunes, especially as literary critic. He after added to his work the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Regarding Heidegger, who Nunes studied throughout his life, it is possible to consider the ontological conception of artistic creation by verbal language, which, according to the German philosopher, corresponds to the foundation of the self by the word. The first part of this research analyzes the intellectual trajectory of Benedito Nunes as well as the material compiled in newspapers and in his first books. The second part presents a sample of the compiled material.