Edição e estudo da novela Statira, e Zoroastes, de Lucas José D'Alvarenga

Abstract

This Doctoral Dissertation sought to edit the novella Statira, e Zoroastes (1826), written by Lucas José dAlvarenga (1768-1831) and recognized as the first novella in Brazil, as well as to analyze its linguistic and literary aspects. The study was conducted to answer the following guiding question: What was the contribution of this novella to the development of the novel genre in Brazil? To answer this question, the following goals have been set: Overall: analyze this novella to verify its importance in the development of the Brazilian novel; Specific: 1. Edit the novella; 2. Conduct both a linguistic study and a literary study of the work. The present research presumed that this novella is more than a mere historical milestone it rather figures as a text of transition between the moralizing prose of the eighteenth century and the modern novel, whose foundation was laid in Brazil with the publication of A moreninha (1844), written by Joaquim Manuel de Macedo, and for this reason played a key role in the development of prose fiction in nineteenth-century Brazil. In this sense, this study is justified by once again editing and circulating the first novella published in the Tupiniquin lands of Brazil at a crucial moment in the formation of the Brazilian novel; by opening the door to a broader knowledge of the literary language of the time period, i.e., the early years of the nineteenth century; by providing reliable material for literary studies, bearing in mind that this literary work pertains to a synchronic cut that must be recovered, as well as by contributing to a better understanding of the formation of the Brazilian novel. This study followed an interpretive edition. To achieve this, a linguistic study of the text was performed. The techniques used to perform the linguistic analysis varied according to the phenomenon under study, but mainly pertained to bibliographic and documental research, as well as quantitative techniques. The literary analysis was also based on bibliographic and documental research, with the former, above all, being conducted from a structuralist point of view. As regards the results, it was generally observed that the language used in the text is characterized as being transitional, in other words, it presents both conservative and innovative linguistic aspects with regard to the development of the Portuguese language in Brazil. The literary analysis also pointed to a hybrid text that preserves the prose fiction aspects of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and, at the same time, aspects of the modern Brazilian novel, which would take root in Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century.