Forgotten Poet’s Letters: Bohemian Literature in Paulistana’s Belle Époque

Abstract

More than resume the history of literature in Brazil, this study aims to establish the social representations of reading and writing during the end of the XIX century and beginning of XX, emphasizing the discussion of how these authors were classified into distinct groups: those who remained immortalized by their works, and that "emerged to the anonymity," or "author-poets" that were forgotten and did not enter the literary canons. Using the word "bohemian" applied to the manuals of literary criticism, brazilian consider as "underliterature" or walkway literature, in other words, that appear between extended periods or poetic generations, at a time of literary routine, may have higher or lower duration depending on the duration period that precedes or follows, may propose a discussion about how to "manufacture" a writer of reputation, and who is to decide its prestige. Thus, reveal the substance of who is the merit for some authors to emerge in anonymity is so interesting as finding out who in fact was those bohemians, or underwriters. The analysis of some theories aproach us of the relation between the reader and text, pointing out symbolic distinction marks.