Lima barreto e o futebol

SOCCER AND LITERARY CRITICISM IN LIMA BARRETO’S CHRONICLES

Prof. Dr J. Luiz dos Anjos

Professor do PPGEF/CEFD/UFES
Juliana G. Saneto
Mestranda do PPGEF/CEFD/GESESC/CESPCEO
Keyla de Sousa
Bolsista de Iniciação Cientifica – PIBIC/UFES
Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo/UFES/CEFD/GESESC/GEPEFIC

Summary
The purpose of this study is to identify in Lima Barreto’s chronicles the charges and criticisms that the man of letters commented against soccer in early 20th Century. We will use Lima Barreto chronicles’ clippings analyzing them in the social and political context of the three first post-republic decades. The study has identified that Lima Barreto’s criticisms were due to the fact and soccer served as an instrument of workers’ dissension, Republic maneuvering strategies and establishing the eugenics process made official by the post-republican Government.

Keywords: 1) soccer 2) literature 3) Lima Barreto

Introduction

Brazilian society will be hardly able to be explained and translated in a foreign context to the great passions of the Brazilian people, among them, soccer. To that end, the purpose of this study is to analyze Lima Barreto’s chronicles and the criticisms and charges that the man of letters made about soccer in the early decades of the 20th Century.

In the course of this study, we will adopt as a source of our interpretations Lima Barreto’s Chronicles, where, clearly, the phenomena we are looking for appear. This is about analyzing his chronicles, titled and referring to soccer and carioca society in the early 20th Century. The methodological process consists of analyzing the socio-anthropological categories that appear in his chronicles in the period from 1910 to 1922, among these specifically those that have as a theme the obsession for social and ethnic origin, the touching descriptions of carioca suburbs, city outskirts, class division, social exclusion and the relationship of the Government with carioca