De andarilho a herói dos pampas: história e literatura na criação do gaúcho herói

Abstract

This study has as main purpose develop a dialogue between the Literature and the History in order to evidence their contributions to construct the gaucho hero s image. For such, we have selected the literary compositions O Gaúcho, of José de Alencar and O Vaqueano, of Apolinário Porto Alegre, because their innovations in the formation of the gaucho s personage as well as they were precursors of the rio-grandense s regionalist literature. The analysis discourse into the recital that the author s ideology is inserted into their narratives. We have analyzed the compositions into their context ideological and secular description, and we identified the images constructed in the narratives served in the meanings construction for the gaucho, and, by this way, they lead the text to the contemplation of ideologies contained in projects previously stipulated. We state the gaucho s figure suffered modifications during the time to attend ideological definitions of the society where it was inserted. In the XX century, the history served the politics for the construction of a regionalist identity, corroborating with the anticipated construction for literature. Thus, it put the gaucho in the center of attentions, constructing a hero who served of link for the cultural unification of the State, defended the ideology of the politics, reinforcing it, and infused a idealized image of the gaucho into the collective unconscious of the rio-grandense people.