"Eu não sou Byron, eu sou outro": o poeta e a poetisa na poesia brasileira e russa do século XIX

Abstract

This PhD dissertation investigates expressions of the Byronic myth in Brazilian and Russian 19th century poetry. We try to understand the self-image and self-fashioning politics of Brazilian and Russian poets and poetesses, and how these writers reshaped Byronic myth. We chose as our Brazilian corpus the poets Fagundes Varela, Castro Alves and Narcisa Amália. From Russian authors we chose Küchelbecker, Pushkin, Lermontov and Evdokiya Rostopchina. Our point of departure is a fundamental question: in what ways can the Byronic myth, which is rooted in Romantic individualism, find expression in historical and cultural contexts which are anathema to individual notions of personal liberty? More than in any other case, the outer boundaries of the Byronic myth are clearest when expressed through female poets of the time, whose self-image was linked, not with the modern myth of the poet, but with the myth of the poetess.