Countryman’s routes in literature

Abstract

In a continental country like Brazil, the territory contributes to the formation of various identities linked to the different spaces that make up the national reality. The literary tradition, by conferring aesthetic treatment to such identity formations, elaborates myths that structure the social imaginary referring to the notion of Brazilianness. Among the myths thus produced, the myth of the sertanejo is central to both the national identity issue and the development of the literary tradition. This work approaches the evolution of this sign from the analysis of characteristic works of different moments of the Brazilian literary system: Os Sertões, by Euclides da Cunha; Vidas Secas, by Graciliano Ramos; Grande Sertão: Veredas, by Guimarães Rosa; O rio and Morte and Vida Severina, by João Cabral de Melo Neto and Essa Terra, by Antônio Torres. The research revealed that the literary representation fractures the sertanejo category in two genera according to the different migratory itineraries that they perform: the errant sertanejo and the sertanejo retirante.