Uma Colônia no Brasil: intersecções entre o relato de viagem, a autobiografia e a autoria feminina

Abstract

In 1857, a time when women were content, or were forced to devote themselves exclusively to family life, the sexagenarian Marie van Langendonck prefers to weave its history. She is an illustrious lady, poetess and writer who describes her experiences in A Colony in Brazil, little known book in the academic environment. Published in 1862 in Belgium, the book provides an account of Marie's experiences in Brazilian lands between 1857 and 1859, whenshe lived in a colony in the south of the country. Although it contained the subtitle Historical Reports, when the book was published, it was evaluated by the critics like a diary, without historical validity, however, as it was researched on the genre, some questions of theoretical nature were raised, since, Marie's account extrapolated capital characteristics pointed out by Blanchot and Lejeune inherent in the diary. It is also intended to reveal how the memorialistic reconstruction of Mme. Van Langendonck converges to an attitude of self-writing that goes beyond the notions of gender, so that the autobiographical space of the work is intrinsically linked to the condition of Marie as a woman, writer and character in a society marked by innumerable prejudices, that limited the woman's performance.