Belmiro Braga (1870-1937): uma biografia do escritor mineiro

Abstract

This thesis analyzes, from the perspective of the social history of literature, the biographical trajectory of the writer Belmiro Braga (1870-1937), from Minas Gerais State, Brazil, characterized since the beginning of his career as having a literary expression of a “spontaneous”, “natural”, “simple” and “naive”. Starting from this premise, we seek to answer the following problem: how did these categories become a literary persona and an interpretative key to Belmiro's production, in order to maintain its position in the incipient Brazilian literary field? To this end, we address the formation and performance of this historical character at the end of the 19th century and in the early decades of the 20th century, understanding this action in the broadest and most multiple sense of a cultural mediator inserted in Juiz de Fora (MG), in a context of modernization and transition from rural to urban. From the reconstitution of their sociability and interlocution networks, through varying scales and a relational and interdependent perspective, we articulate their activities at regional and national levels, as well as their work carried out inside and outside the universe of literature.