A literatura vista de baixo

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing a modality of literary creation and a conceptualtheoretical perspective which is called literature from below. Such category of literary production is perceived as result of works from subaltern and marginalized social classes, and simultaneously as a theoretical perspective that values the differences between this type of literature and scholarly literature, historically associated with the social and cultural elites in different places and periods. The main objective is to develop the notion of "literature from below” as a theoretical key in order to explain the limits concerning representation of poverty within scholarly literature in Western historical context, especially focusing on the Brazilian case and the deficiencies of its “popular” category, often used by our literary system to embrace productions of writers and poets which are generated outside the classical sphere.