A literatura infantil brasileira do século XIX: adaptações para crianças em Contos da Carochinha, de Figueiredo Pimentel

Abstract

In the present work, we aimed at investigating the nineteenth century children 's literature, basing on some narratives which were collected by Figueiredo Pimentel, in Contos da Carochinha ([1894]/1958). They were, chronologically, the starting point concerning Brazilian children's literature, being also considered as a watershed, once it presented the first signs regarding a movement towards an autonomous literature, endowed with its own aesthetic characteristics. We started, thus, by considering this author´s rewriting process so as to undertake a journey and some investigation towards some texts´ aspects such as source, characteristics and rewriting type. This research presents, as its main aim, a study on the beginnings of Brazilian children's literature, focusing on Figueiredo Pimentel´s writing, and being directed to this particular audience. As to its specific objectives it aimed at drawing the children's literature panorama, starting from the study of the main European representatives up to the available works related to children's literature, both in the nineteenth and in the beginning of the twentieth century. Besides, we also aimed at getting acquainted with Figueiredo Pimentel´s production, both as a journalist and as a writer. In addition to the previously mentioned specific objectives, we aimed at understanding Figueiredo Pimentel´s rewriting process as regarding to children's tales, through a comparison among the short stories "O Chapéu Vermelho", "Branca de neve" and "A Gata Borralheira", taken from the 25th edition of Contos da Carochinha (1958) with European children's literature gathered classics, by Xavier Marmier in L'Arbre de Noël et légedes recueillis by Xavier Marmier (1873), with the purpose of identifying a possible immediate source used in the work that inaugurated the Children's Library of Quaresma Bookstore; defining which rewriting short stories modality was chosen by the Brazilian author; and getting to know the aesthetic features that characterize his work as brazilian, adapting literature to our children´s taste in that period. As to the basic bibliography concerning the historical-literary study, we can point out Arroyo (2011), Bravo-Villasante (1977), Mendes (2017), Duarte (1995), El Far (2006; 2010), Hallewell (2006), and as to the study on adaptation, we can point out Carvalho (2014), Hutcheon (2013), Feijó (2010), Formiga (2009) and Amorim (2005). The research is classified as exploratory and bibliographic (GIL, 2002). Regarding the approach, it is qualitative (JACOBSEN, 2009), and the results show that Figueiredo Pimentel, considering the rewriting of European tales (1873) had, as a starting point, Xavier Marmier ´s literary Works, using both the indigenization process (HUTCHEON, 2013), as an adaptation procedure, and linguistic constructions closer to orality , in order to meet an urgent need for that time due to the lack of children's works which were closer to the Brazilian reader reality.