Repensando o São Cristóvão no conjunto da obra queirosiana

Abstract

This dissertation aims at pointing out the relevance of Eça de Queirós s short story São Cristóvão and its position amongst the author s works. The metafictional texts of Eça, along the 1880 s and 1890 s suggest a change in his aesthetic beliefs. Following a tendency already appointed by Antero de Quental, regarding the several currents of thought that permeated the second half of the nineteenth century, Eça leaves behind the most orthodox positions of the Realist-Naturalist period and adopts a more syncretistic attitude in his writings. In this new line of thought, Eça gives way to imagination and fantasy inside his works. However, this won t be the most significant change in relation to the Realist-Naturalist period. The new thing is that, in his writings concerning this phase, Eça questions consciousness as the supreme arbiter controlling human actions, showing that consciousness itself cannot be able to warrant men the Good (absolute) lectured by Positivism. We compared the short story São Cristóvão to what Antero calls, in his philosophy, the ideal I, in order to assert how Eça struggled against the Positivist idea that men could only reach the absolute Good by consciousness. Therefore, we will defend the idea that São Cristóvão is inserted in Eça s ideological setback, maintaining a dialogue with the 70 s Generation , with the philosophy of Antero, and the intellectual crisis of the end of the 19th Century