Ideias preliminares sobre o romance: uma leitura dos prefácios camilianos

Abstract

Due to the rise of modern novel, the prefaces space, also called prologue, preamble, warnings to the reader, preliminary ideas, was also used as a debate spot, where it was aimed to form the novelistic aesthetic and to add credibility to the novel. The issues were also seen in prefaces from brazilian and portuguese novelists by the time of the rise and consolidation of the novel in those coutries, in the mid-nineteenth century, these issues circulated between the two countries through the importation of books too, especially regarding the transatlantic movement Portugal-Brazil. Camilo Castelo Branco was one of the portuguese writers greatly appreciated in Brazil, and whose works are filled with prefaces, which approuch, among other aspects, the novel as a new genre surrounded by distrust. The works of Camilo formed, over time, imposing large collections in great libraries from the country, such as the collection Camiliana, located in Grêmio Literário Português, State of Pará, where many texts produced, translated and edited by the portuguese writer can be found, besides works that reference him, whose highlight is on the meaningful presence of novels, which are mostly first editions. Thus, based on the prologues of the first editions novels: Amor de perdição (1862), Estrellas funestas (1862), Annos de prosa (1863), Amor de salvação (1864), Mysterios de Fafe (1868), O retrato de Ricardina (1868), and the second edition of O romance d’um homem rico (1863), available on that collection, this work seeks to reflect on the images and opinions that the author builds and designs about the genre itself and its possible reader, in order to understand his vision of issues so commonly associated with novel, as the relationship between reality and fiction and fiction and morality, this acquaintance does not obliterate the reading and dialogue with the fictional texts themselves, which the prefaces are conditioned to. To this end, it is approached, in the two chapters that precede the analysis of prologues from Camilo, respectively: aspects concerning the rise of the novel, its acclimatization in Portugal and its cultivation by Camilo Castelo Branco; the acclimatization of the genre in Brazil, the importance of creating spaces for reading and the physical description of the collection Camilians, the corpus from the research.