O FANTÁSTICO NO BRASIL OITOCENTISTA: HORROR SOBRENATURAL E INQUIETAÇÃO EM “A GUARIDA DE PEDRA”, DE FAGUNDES VARELA

Abstract

This study aims to research the field of Brazilian fantastic narratives from the 19th century. It is a bibliographical research of a qualitative nature. To this end, we will carry out an analysis of the short story A Guarida de Pedra (1861), written by the renowned poet Luís Nicolau Fagundes Varela (1841-1875), in an attempt to investigate the presence and performance of the fantastic mode in the literary work. For better organization and clarity, this work was divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, we will address the beginnings of supernatural horror narratives in literature; the Gothic and the emergence of modern horror literature; and the emergence of fantastic literature, as well as its functioning as a genre and literary mode. In this exhibition, we will use contributions from authors such as Howard Phillips Lovecraft (2007), Jean Delumeau (2009), Oscar Nestarez (2022), Alcebíades Diniz (2021), Emílio Soares Ribeiro (2021), Júlio França (2022), Tzvetan Todorov ( 2004) and Remo Ceserani (2006). In the second chapter, we will cover Romanticism as an influential artistic movement that occurred in Europe and Brazil; we will address the problem of the erasure of Brazilian fantastic narratives in the eyes of traditional criticism; and we will briefly present the life and work of Rio de Janeiro writer Fagundes Varela. Under this bias, we will use historiographical contributions from Alfredo Bosi ([1989?]), Antonio Candido (2002), Otto Maria Carpeaux (2008) and José Guilherme Merquior (1979), in addition to the biographical considerations of Edgard Cavalheiro (1956, 1957). Finally, in the third and final chapter, we will present a brief summary of the literary work; we will carry out the analysis of the corpus, in which we will investigate the presence of the fantastic mode in the literary work based on the theoretical considerations of Remo Ceserani (2006); and we will end the work by exposing the results of our analysis, through which we recognize the literary work as belonging to the fantastic mode, due to the accumulation of elements recurring to this literary modality.