“Beware, Reader, When You Turn this Page!”, About Prefaces, Readers and Writers in Brazilian Romanticism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17851/2358-9787.29.1.155-180Keywords:
paratext, preface, RomanticismAbstract
Abstract: This article seeks to identify and provoke reflections about the discursive strategies used in the prefaces of works that are part of the consolidation process of XIX century Brazilian literature: Primeiros cantos, Lira dos vinte anos, A moreninha and Ressurreição. The aim here is to study the images around the Reader, the Author and the Work within the forewords from Gonçalves Dias, Álvares de Azevedo, Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and Machado de Assis. The article parts from the concept of paratext developed by Gérard Genette (2009), which highlights the interstitial aspect of the preface, besides the comparison between two great preface models for the Brazilian Romanticism: the Prologue from the First Part of The Ingenious Knight Dom Quixote de La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes, and Preface to Cromwell, by Victor Hugo. While reaffirming a prelude status in the literary work, the preface is understood as a threshold between reality and fiction and enables the creation of a true discursive mise-en-scène, apart from working as circumstantial and pragmatic tool to present the text. In this regard, the way that Brazilian authors weave the principles of a “way and a reason to read” in a literary context considered incipient is very much appreciated and indispensable for the formation of a readership.
Keywords: paratext; preface; Romanticism.