Percursos da Crítica e Historiografia Literária Brasileiras no Século XIX: Gilberto Freyre Crítico de Literatura e Arte

In 1960, literary critic Renato Carneiro Campos edited the volume Vida, forma e cor (1962), a book published in the collection Obras Reunidas de Gilberto Freyre, published by José Olympio. The work carried out by Campos was considered by Freyre as «[...] a critical reaction [...] to the intransigence with which already ancient masters – one of them, Tristão de Ataíde – had been excluding, from properly literary Literature, the same essays» published in Life, form and color. In the 1960s, Freyre noticed a great divergence among Brazilian critics in relation to his work, at the same time that he received national and international recognition from his peers for his literary qualities. The volume organized by Campos brought to-gether several of Freyre’s works dedicated to aesthetic and literary criticism. In his preface to Vida, forma e cor, Freyre, expressing a comparative view of criticism and literature, demanded that authors such as Euclides da Cunha, Raul Pompeia, and other Brazilians li-terary creators recognize the true place of these writers in national culture, due to the aesthetic and literary qualities of their productions. Freyre identified that, in the creation produced by these authors, «[...] more poetry, more literature, more truth, more beauty, And also more Brazil. More shape and more color from Brazil». In this work, we present how the aesthetic and literary criticism produced by Gilberto Freyre, little explored in Brazilian literature courses, are situated in this period.