Brazil and the Dialectic of Colonization (Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies Series) - Softcover

Bosi, Alfredo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 025208084X ISBN 13: 9780252080845

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2015

Synopsis

A classic of Brazilian literary criticism and historiography, Brazil and the Dialectic of Colonization explores the unique character of Brazil from its colonial beginnings to its emergence as a modern nation. This translation presents the thought of Alfredo Bosi, one of contemporary Brazil's leading intellectuals, to an English-speaking audience.

Portugal extracted wealth from its Brazilian colony. Slaves--first indigenous peoples, later Africans--mined its ore and cut its sugarcane. From the customs of the colonists and the aspirations of the enslaved rose Brazil. Bosi scrutinizes signal points in the creation of Brazilian culture--the plays and poetry, the sermons of missionaries and Jesuit priests, the Indian novels of José de Alencar and the Voices of Africa of poet Castro Alves. His portrait of the country's response to the pressures of colonial conformity offers a groundbreaking appraisal of Brazilian culture as it emerged from the tensions between imposed colonial control and the African and Amerindian cults--including the Catholic-influenced ones--that resisted it.

About this title

About the Author

Alfredo Bosi is the director of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paolo. He is the author of A Concise History of Brazilian Literature. Robert Patrick Newcomb is an associate professor of Luso-Brazilian studies at the University of California-Davis.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 025208084X
• ISBN 13: 9780252080845
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 392