Belém de Dalcídio ou história e experiência literária da paisagem urbana da Amazônia

Abstract

Unlike many books on Amazon that insist on the myth and in the jungle, until today, our article addresses the issue of culture and literature in the Amazon from the historical-geographical perspective and the sine qua non condition of any cultural expression in modern sense, i.e., departing from the existence of the city with public life and politics published in newspapers, magazines and books, presupposing press, printings, literary circles and modern media. The first newspaper in the Amazon appeared already in 1822 had as editor in chief Felipe Patroni, the second one that circulated between 1824 and 1827, was directed by Don Romualdo de Seixas. With the opening of the free navigation of the Amazon River in 1867, naturalist travellers arrived to the Amazon, and with them greater attention to a public life and national and international information, in the last quarter of the 19th century, intense cultural and journalistic activities developed with editors and contributors. It should be noticed that the city in the 19th century had as inhabitants mostly native and slaves and a strong experience of popular culture. How did Belem and the interior of Para state change in the late 19th century, with the intensive extraction of rubber in the Amazon? Our study presents approaches of perception and urban living not by priests, architects or travelers, but by the modern novelist, Dalcídio Jurandir (1909-1979), in order to contribute on the issue of border between city and countryside and urban and regional experience in the environment dominated by water and forest.