Candido’s Formação da Literatura Brasileira in another key

Abstract

Polemics usually offer useful access points for understanding the divergences in a given field. This seems to be the case with the "Baroque", abducted, in Haroldo Campos' view, from Antonio Candido's literary history. Although Alcir Pécora, a few years ago on the occasion of the reissue of O Sequestro do Barroco (The Abduction of the Baroque), described this controversy as "outdated", the root of the problem is still alive and exerting a strong influence on literary teaching and research in Brazil today, despite the emergence of new theoretical-historical models. In this paper, we intend to revisit the core of this controversy from a strictly theoretical perspective. The fluctuations of the canon, the correspondence of Gregório de Matos' work to the interests of a particular time or any questions of aesthetic value are not at stake here. In the first part, we will try to expose the shared premise, on which the text of the Sequestro and Candido's work converge; in the second part, we will propose an alternative way of understanding the three-part scheme grasped in Candido’s Formação, namely the sequencing of "manifestation", "configuration" and "consolidated system".