Cultura escolar e infância em Cazuza, de Viriato Corrêa

Abstract

This study examined the analytical categories “school culture” and “childhood” in the narrative Cazuza, by Viriato Corrêa, published in 1938 by the Companhia Editora Nacional. Cazuza is treated here as the main source for a historical investigation of the objects “school culture” and “childhood”, with a view to understanding the path that led Viriato Corrêa to write Cazuza, to identify the conceptions of school culture and childhood that frame the writing of the narrative and to examine the conditions in which the book was produced, taking account of the place and time (Maranhão in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). As the historical source is constructed by the researcher (GINZBURG, 2002), it was decided to interrogate it in the present, by deploying, as secondary sources, the education laws in place in Maranhão during the study period, journalistic articles and pieces, statistics and geographical information and writings by intellectuals that address the same themes as Cazuza. The methodology employed consisted in identifying and analysing documentary sources and a review of the literature with regard to Cazuza, History of Education, childhood and school culture. Also useful, to begin with, was existing research into Corrêa’s intellectual history and social networks (SIRINELLI, 1986). The analysis then turned to the school culture present in the narrative, endeavouring to understand the sets of standards and practices that permeate the processes of formal schooling observed in the narrative (JULIA, 2001) and how the actors involved generated school culture and adapted to its changes (BENITO, 2017). Lastly, the analytical category “childhood” was investigated through the changes in the lives of the children portrayed, from which “childhood” was understand to be a representation, on the part of adults, of the early period of life (KUHLMANN; FERNANDES, 2004), while children were the recipients and depositaries of the discourses and practices produced with regard to childhood (GOUVEA, 2008).