Facets of Human on Gonçalves Dias’ Perception

An Analysis of His Correspondence and His Amazon Travel Journal

Abstract

Abstract: This article aims to explore the complexity of indigenous modes of representation in Gonçalves Dias beyond his poetic work, from hybrid texts that complement it: his personal writings. We have selected for this purpose records of a crucial moment in the author’s trajectory: the year of 1861, when he traveled to the Amazon and had the opportunity to confront the imagery created around the figure of the Indian and the empirical experience. Having already published the entire Indianist work, but always with plans to write more (Os Timbiras remained incomplete), the mestizo poet lives on this journey a unique situation of reflection, which he develops through correspondence and travel journal. In the light of decoloniality theorists, we try to understand the origins of the ideology that influenced his perception and to situate the category “human” in its diverse facets, valuations and gradations. The reading of this material suggests an intense racial tension, in which diverse designations are used based on the color of the skin and the miscegenation. We observe the ambivalence present in the game between poetic convention and the descriptive record of personal observations, that is, in the difficulty of objectively defining who the Indian would be, who would represent “our people”.

Keywords: Gonçalves Dias; correspondence; journal; human; representation; Indian.