Relações entre história e literatura e a construção do elemento identitário amazônico em simá: romance do alto amazonas

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between History and Literature, elucidating how Literature can be used as a source of research for the production of historical knowledge. First, it reports on how the topic of interest for this research was chosen. Then, it discusses the dialogical relationship between History and Literature. Afterwards, it briefly addresses the perspective of Cultural History and the evidentiary method. As a corpus of analysis, the work of Lourenço Amazonas, Simá: Romance do Alto Amazonas, is used in order to understand its historical content pertinent to the construction of the Amazonian identity as an element of national identity, using as a parallel the essay written by the philosopher Janine Ribeiro, “Iracema ou a fundamento do Brasil”, in which the aforementioned author also analyzes the meaning of the novel Iracema, an Indianist novel by José de Alencar, as a representation of national identity. Although the novels choose the issue of national identity, Simá has a peculiar meaning, when compared to the novel Iracema. The latter proposes a synthesis through the relationship between the indigenous and the European. That suggests the composition of a fragmented, ambiguous, fluid identity caused by the shock, violence of the rape that generated Simá, the character of the book of the same name.