A polêmica da leitura de romances: prescrições e preceitos religiosos na Belém do século XIX

Abstract

The social, cultural and political transformations that occurred in the 19th century caused different manifestations in the Brazilian press, more specifically, the religious-doctrinal orders led a fervent clash in which ideological disputes competed to establish themselves, one or the other, in society through actions that would go beyond the religious realm. In this context, the romance novel genre became popular in the journalistic environment too, and its reading practice was the target of divergent points of view between the literate figures working in the press. Thus, this study aims to analyze, comparatively, the presence of criticism of the novel in Pará's newspapers A Boa Nova (1871-1883), of Catholic nature, and O Pelicano (1872-1874), representative of the Freemasonry in Belém, Pará, in order to confirm the significant attention to reading practices, at the time, by dogmatic institutions, which are also included in the studies on the circulation and dissemination of the novel in the 19th century. In order to achieve the proposed objective, the periodicals were read, cataloged and compiled from the data referring to the main analysis, in addition to the insertion of bibliographic readings relevant to the historical period and the doctrine of each newspaper. Therefore, the work is divided into three main sections, in which in the first one we will deal with newspapers of a religious-doctrinal character in other provinces of the country, integrating them into a national movement of doctrinal period, in which fictional prose was one of the relevant subjects published in these forms. Then, the selected newspapers from Pará will be explained, in terms of their material specificities, who were their directors and what was printed in the editions, incorporating such topics to the historical context in which both newspapers were inserted. Finally, the writings referring to the prescriptions for the novel promoted in these newspapers will be analyzed, in which articles, notes and advertisements will be explained in the light of the respective editorial projects of each print, as well as contextualized according to the historical and literary aspects of the period. On the one hand, the novel, and consequently its reading, is chosen as a dangerous instrument for Catholic believers, on the other, it is valued and recommended as an instructive and moralizing reading and, according to the intentions of each newspaper, the presence of criticism and disclosure of the novels in these newspapers proves the concern of religious leaders about the reading practices of the time and the effects caused on readers, which could contribute to or alienate the public from the precepts of each institution. In this way, the research inserts in the literary studies the investigation in primary sources of religious-doctrinal nature, since they were means of propagating the 19th century fictional prose and they integrated with a set of prescriptive and critical writings about the romance novel, dealing with significant objects of study for the composition of national Literary History.