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HISTÓRIA, ESTÉTICA E PATOLOGIA: A TRISTEZA COMO FORMA DE PENSAMENTO EM PAULO PRADO.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: HISTÓRIA, ESTÉTICA E PATOLOGIA: A TRISTEZA COMO FORMA DE PENSAMENTO EM PAULO PRADO.
Alternate Title: HISTORY, AESTHETICS AND PATHOLOGY: SADNESS AS A FORM OF THOUGHT IN PAULO PRADO.
Authors: de Carvalho Diniz, Cláudio Lúcio1
Source: Revista Gênero e Interdisciplinaridade. 2025, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p90-114. 25p.
Subject Terms: Identity crises (Psychology), Emotional state, Social classes, Cultural history, National character
Abstract (English): This article proposes a critical analysis of Paulo Prado's "Portrait of Brazil" (1928), considering it as an essay in which melancholy operates as an explanatory category of Brazilian national identity. Drawing on the articulation of cultural history, psychoanalysis, and literature, the article investigates how Prado transforms collective sadness into a structuring symptom of the Brazilian character, marked by inherent vices, greed, lust, and miscegenation, and exacerbated by 19th-century Romantic ideology. Melancholy is understood here not only as an emotional state but also as a form of thought, permeating both the psychology of the author and that of his social class--the declining São Paulo coffee aristocracy. The work is situated between the tradition of nineteenth-century racialism and the modernist aesthetics of the 1920s, composing a pessimistic narrative that interprets Brazil as a failed nation still in search of symbolic redemption. The analysis seeks to highlight the tensions, contradictions, and ambivalences in Prado's work, highlighting its originality as a portrait of an elite in ruin and a country in an identity crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Abstract (Portuguese): O presente artigo propõe uma análise crítica da obra Retrato do Brasil (1928), de Paulo Prado, considerando-a como uma construção ensaística em que a melancolia opera como categoria explicativa da identidade nacional brasileira. A partir da articulação entre história cultural, psicanálise e literatura, investiga-se de que modo Prado transforma a tristeza coletiva em um sintoma estruturante do caráter brasileiro, marcado por vícios de origem, cobiça, luxúria e mestiçagem, e agravado pelo ideário romântico do século XIX. A melancolia é compreendida aqui não apenas como estado emocional, mas como forma de pensamento, atravessando tanto a psicologia do autor quanto a de sua classe social -- a aristocracia cafeeira paulista em declínio. A obra é situada entre a tradição do racialismo oitocentista e a estética modernista da década de 1920, compondo uma narrativa pessimista que interpreta o Brasil como nação fracassada, mas ainda em busca de redenção simbólica. A análise busca evidenciar as tensões, contradições e ambivalências da obra de Prado, destacando sua originalidade como retrato de uma elite em ruína e de um país em crise de identidade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Description
Abstract:This article proposes a critical analysis of Paulo Prado's "Portrait of Brazil" (1928), considering it as an essay in which melancholy operates as an explanatory category of Brazilian national identity. Drawing on the articulation of cultural history, psychoanalysis, and literature, the article investigates how Prado transforms collective sadness into a structuring symptom of the Brazilian character, marked by inherent vices, greed, lust, and miscegenation, and exacerbated by 19th-century Romantic ideology. Melancholy is understood here not only as an emotional state but also as a form of thought, permeating both the psychology of the author and that of his social class--the declining São Paulo coffee aristocracy. The work is situated between the tradition of nineteenth-century racialism and the modernist aesthetics of the 1920s, composing a pessimistic narrative that interprets Brazil as a failed nation still in search of symbolic redemption. The analysis seeks to highlight the tensions, contradictions, and ambivalences in Prado's work, highlighting its originality as a portrait of an elite in ruin and a country in an identity crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]