Slavery “a great evil”:

The thesis of Maria Firmina dos Reis

Abstract

Our concern in this study was to reflect on the importance of narrative processes in the representation of black people and slavery in the work of Maria Firmina dos Reis (1822-1917). To do so, we take as specific corpus the short story "A escrava", published in 1887, and, as far as possible, the complete work of the author. We will also seek to indicate the presence of romantic irony as an aspect that occupies a prominent place in the stylistic procedures in the complete work of Maria Firmina dos Reis (2018). We use as main theoretical resource the concept of romantic irony, according to Kierkegaard (1991), and, that of chiste, according to Suzuki (1998), among others, and, as well as procedures of literary representation associated with the figure of the enslaved black man in the narrative of the author in question. As a main methodological resource, we will discuss our corpus stricto sensu, with emphasis on the short story "A escrava", trying to comment, whenever possible, on the author's complete work. It is a premise of the study to demonstrate aesthetic aspects of Maria Firmina dos Reis' narrative that, as we understand it, demonstrate the specificities of her work in the context of Brazilian literary historiography. An unfolding of the study is the expansion of the fixed limits of the Brazilian literary canon, a theoretical aspect that values the perception of the heterogeneity of Brazilian romanticism and, as far as possible, promotes the continuous revision and expansion of the literary canon in Brazil.