II Simpósio- artigos agrupados Editado ate pagina 1035

ABSTRACT:This article analyzes the relationship between history and fiction in the
Chronicle of the Discovery of Brazil, published by the Brazilian historian Francisco
Adolfo de Varnhagen, between January 18 and March 28, 1840, in “O Panorama”
Magazine, in Lisbon. The Chronicle reports, romantically, the arrival of the navy of
Pedro Álvares Cabral in the lands that would be denominated of Brazil, emphasizing the
Letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha. Combining real and fictional characters, Chronicle
would be an example of historical fiction. The historian who devoted himself to the
historical events, based on the same sources, operated on the border between the real
and the fictitious, a limit perhaps not yet so certain and definitive, which amplifies the
very conception of history that developed in that first half of the nineteenth century,
relativizing, in this sense, the idea of the scientific and objective history that will
characterize the Eighth. It is in this context of the romantic movement that one can think
of the fluid boundaries of the history that was established, and that allowed the writing
of frontier literary works between the novel and the historical. In Varnhagen, literature
accompanies the Nation, indicating the stage of civilization in which it finds itself.
Keywords: Varnhagen; Chronicle of the discovery of Brazil; historical fiction; nation.
Em carta ao amigo Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara, de 1839,
Varnhagen escreveu que:
Falla-me V. Sa. no seu trabalho acerca de clássicos portuguezes. Nasceu-me
o desejo de saber em que sentido era, porque eu tinha sobre isso já escripto
alguma coisa em estilo meu romântico á Walter Scott; – e creio que em
gênero didactico e desta natureza ofereceria novidade. Passei a esta
lembrança depois de ter premeditado diálogos, que também para o meu fim
seria bom estillo. Penso porém que o trabalho de V. Sª será mais elevado e
sério. (VARNHAGEN, 1961, p. 34, grifo meu)
Destaque-se em estilo meu romântico á Walter Scott. O estilo era dele,
embora houvesse o modelo já construído por Scott. Seguira o estilo romântico por
julgar ser o melhor com vistas a realizar o gênero que pleiteava, o didático. Pela data da
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