Leopardi nas Crónicas Jornalísticas Brasileiras de 1881 a 1916

Abstract

The crônica is a literary genre that became widespread in Brazilian newspapers and magazines pages in the 19th century. These short pieces were responsible for the circulation and insertion of foreign writers in the Brazilian cultural system, such as the Italian writer Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). The present article analyses, based on Cultural Translation Theory (Burke/Hsia 2009), how Leopardi was represented in Brazilian crônicas published between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, specifically from 1881 to 1916, and available at the Brazilian Digital Newspaper Archive. The analysis of 12 crônicas shows that they were written predominantly by men, and published in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo; these cronistas tend to show Leopardi as poet, “translating” and resignifying his “patriotism”, and, mainly, his “pessimist philosophy”, following sectors of the Italian criticism of the time. Furthermore, they exert a double function in the process of cultural translation, filling in thematic gaps and spreading Leopardi’s works.