Between Malandragens and Cortiços

Allegories of Brazil in Antonio Candido’s literary historiography (1970-1973)

Abstract

At the beginning of the 1970s, Antonio Candido took a closer look at some literary works produced in Brazil in the 19th century, in particular O Cortiço (1890), by Aluísio de Azevedo, and Memórias de um sargento de milícias (1853), by Manuel Antonio de Almeida. Rather than looking for a properly literary characterization of the novels, the critic produced, based on the narratives elaborated in the plots, two essays interpreting Brazilian reality: “Dialética da Malandragem” (Dialectic of Malandragem) (1970) and “De Cortiço a Cortiço” (From Cortiço to Cortiço) (1973). At a time when Brazil was immersed in the experience of the civil-military dictatorship, these texts represent Candido's effort to investigate the roots of our “backwardness” resulting from the deleterious effects of colonialism on the formation of Latin America. Our hypothesis is that, based on these 19th century works of fiction, the critic developed a reading of Brazilian historicity based on the allegories of malandragem and cortiço as marks of our peripheral difference, based above all on the conflictive and wandering character of our people.