Literatura e memória : o ciclo da cana-de-açúcar de Claribalte Passos

Abstract

Diagrammed in the symbiosis between text and context, memory becomes mmm active agent of fictionality, by imprinting mmm dialectical course: the summoning of experiences from the past notifies individuals about the retrospection and the referents – individual and collective – that define new assimilations of the present. This assertion gives another emphasis to diegetic forms, insofar as it sometimes echoes past actions in the literary fabric, and sometimes underlines an evocation guided by the rails of reality. The framing of these biases endorsed by the literature follows the main objective to be achieved in this thesis: to analyze short stories from the set of works of the so-called “Sugarcane Cycle” by Claribalte Passos, in the light of memory. Composed of the books Estórias de Engenho (1973), Universo Verde (1975), Estórias de um Senhor-de-Engenho (1976) and Atrás das nuvens, onde nasce o sol (1977), the series of narratives, set against the rural backdrop of the Caruaru region in Pernambuco, frames a sugarcane-based civilization through a realist perspective: it adorns plots with memorialistic, historical-cultural, and folkloric elements, with the intention of revisiting a sugarcane universe that shaped how individuals came together in various social groups. The four short stories, one from each work, chosen for investigation are illuminated by theoretical premises that address intersections of solidarity between aesthetics, memory, and life. They are examined through the recollection of a social horizon marked by a controversial worldview: on the one hand, immersed in popular customs and knowledge, regional beliefs, Afro-Brazilian culture, and folkloric richness; on the other, committed to the tradition of landowning elites, rooted in the legacy of slavery, and structured by the political violence between coronelismo and cangaço forces that compromised collective identities and are symbolized by the “dead fire” (fogo morto) and the rise of the sugar mills. The fictional and contextual dimensions also converge with biographical aspects of the author from Pernambuco, given the content of his memories among the sugarcane mills of the Northeast. In this sense, the memorialistic foundation provides fiction with the necessary material for crafting an aesthetic project, weaving together narrative elements with impressions of social experience. This trajectory reveals the neglect and oblivion of Claribalte Passos and his works in Brazilian literary studies, but through this work, it also legitimizes his value and encourages his recovery from the monolithic ruins of literature or from the dusty shelves of old secondhand bookstores.