A narrativa de Maria Firmina dos Reis e a perspectiva hermenêutica para a prática dos estudos literários.

Abstract

This work aims to interpret the narratives Gupeva, Ursula and The Slave Woman, by Maria Firmina dos Reis. The Brazilian writer, originally from Maranhão State lived in the second half of the 19th century, on Romanticism and slavery Brazilian times. Although she does not make part of the main roll on traditional studies of Brazilian literature, their works are full of the ideals from that age, her vision about the slavery constitutes a milestone in the literature context since their characters are humanized and respectable slaves. The presence of these constituent elements from romanticism aesthetics on her work denotes the involvement and participation of the author in the culture of her time. Therefore this paper intend to explore these works, considering that they can be read even today, by their literary quality and human and social values. Thus, this offered interpretation tries not only to understand better these texts, but also upgrade them, and put them into a current context. It is a brand of hermeneutical nature and has a double orientation: It indicates a mode, a player's positioning in the face of literary works and, on the other hand, proposes that the hermeneutic perspective can be a viable and productive path for the literary studies. This study presents at first reflections about hermeneutics, based on the ideas of Bosi, Stein, Palmer, Grondin, Bleicher, among others; Itpresents the author Maria Firmina dos Reis, their works and a general review of an existing criticism about her. In addition it mentions some studies about the feminist writing in the 19th century; develops a research about the romanticism aiming to establish relations between this aesthetic and the fictional works, as well as to understand the social, historical and cultural contextin which they arose. Finally, it proposes the interpretation of the narratives of Mary Firmina dos Reis using them as a guiding axes, the point of view of narration, the voices or characters manifestations and relations with the main elements of romantic aesthetics.