O sertão nordestino na perspectiva geográfica de Euclides da Cunha (1897-1902)

Abstract

Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909) is one of the emblematic characters of his time, the protagonist of important processes and events that marked the history of Brazil at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. With a vast scientific knowledge and a refined writing and personality - fruit of his eclectic education - Euclides has successfully worked in engineering, journalism, literature and other positions. The success of his career had its peak in Os Sertões (1902), a book that became a milestone in national literature because it is a work capable of having a great impact on the brazilian intellectual and social environment. The aim of this research is to understand the role of geography in euclidean thought, to understand how it served as the theoretical and methodological basis that supported its argument. For such we chose an empirical approach focused on themes related to Canudos and the northeastern backwoods, and takes as a source of research the texts of Euclides written in 1897 - when the War of Canudos intensifies - and Os Sertões, focus at reconstruct the path taken by him throughout the period in which he was dedicated to research on the subject. The first chapter intents to present the complexity that surrounds an analysis of Euclides da Cunha's text, on aspects of literary theory, the debates that revolve around his work and its relationship with geographical science. The second chapter deals with the analysis of the texts written by Euclides in the year in which he began his contact with the theme of the War of Canudos and the studies of the northeastern backwoods. The third chapter will analyze the geographic arguments present in Os Sertões and shows the evolution of their studies along the writing process. Thus, it is intended to demonstrate that Euclides' work is of great relevance to situate Brazilian geography in the history of science, understands him as one of the representatives of these intellectuals who produced geographic knowledge between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries