O MAGISTÉRIO DA LITERATURA: PROFESSORES-ESCRITORES

Abstract

In this text about the teaching of literature, we focus on three authors (Luísa Dacosta, Vergílio Ferreira and Sebastião da Gama) who, with more or less passion, engaged in teaching. For them teaching was a reason for expressing artistically their relations with students, teaching methods, notions of knowledge, and values.

As authors of personal journals, they used this literary genre either to present their experience as teachers of language and / or literature or to explain their notion of literature, its functions and its teaching. Their concern with proper teaching (including the teaching of language) conveys their belief in the important role played by literature as a means for information, education and transmission of values.

From the positions taken by these three writers/diarists, we conclude that they practised what George Gusdorf described as a ‘metaphysics of pedagogy’, defining themselves not merely as teachers but also as educators, i.e., as someone who does not teach the same to everyone but who conveys a specific message to each student.