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10th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abri l 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

Human Ecology in Portuguese Literature:

Images and concepts in Ferreira de Castro’s novels

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Ana Cristina Carvalho FCSH – UNL, Lisbon, Portugal

10th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abri l 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho . 2

Presentation aims an overview of the presence of Nature and Environment in the literary work of Portuguese writer Ferreira de Castro*, by interpreting on how six “Pórticos”* to his novels picture Portuguese and Brazilian landscapes (natural and humanized), and in what extent they reflect Ecology / Human Ecology concepts.

* Pórticos – Writer’s personal introductory texts

* Artist who showed a particular “Way of felling the world”


Cross-disciplinary Ecocriticism

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• Literature – expression of human thinking

independent of science, contains in its different styles -

novels and tales, dramatic texts, chronicals … -

a potencial of difusion of ecological values

• Literary language and culture plays a role in building

human perception of Natural World

Makes sense to cross SCIENCE Knowledge ART (Literature) knowledge


Ecocriticism: Green studies, Enviromental literary criticism, Literary ecology …

• Analysis and criticism of literary text concerning its content in Nature and ecological subjects

• “Literary ecology” created in 1972 by Joseph W. Meeker: “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works”

• “Ecocriticism” coined 1978 by American William Rueckert, although in 1923, Norman Foerster’s Nature in American Literature was pioneer book of this new academic field

Today, we try to identify concepts of human and non-human nature in Ferreira de Castro


SHE (Society for Human Ecology): Relation Arts (specialy Literature) - Ecology is one of its several departments

• Systemic and interdisciplinary approach to understand bio-socio-cultural dimension of human-being

• Born in the 20’s of xxth century * - Chicago School - responding to the complexity of problems of Human population in American megacities

• A scientific field relating ECOSPHERE to SOCIALSPHERE

• Intersection NATURE Sciences HUMAN/SOCIAL Sciences

Human Ecology:


This connection was captured and pictured by high sensitivity of writer Ferreira de Castro

His novels:

• Example of how Literature shows no immunity to Nature

• Reveal an influence of • local land rhythm • place spirit • environmental practices

… linked to • human work • human well-being • human pain

Portugal… A strongly humanized territory - its Natural Patrimony strictly connected to human activity


Ferreira de Castro (1898 - 1974)

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Stands out among Portuguese literary scene with work of great aesthetical and ethical density and wide outreach

Between 1928 - 1974 writes ten novels picturing several areas of Portugal and Brasil, and wide Journey Literature

His roots were rural and poor Portugal on early XXth century Leaves alone to Brazil at 12, and spends adolescence in Seringal Paraíso

Worldwide translated during XXth century. Masterpiece Jungle was one of ten books most read in the world, acording to UNESCO, 1973


Ferreira de Castro

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In Portuguese newspaper O Século, 1964, confesses an “irresistable fascination” for “great and green landscapes” and “it was in company of Nature that I wrote most of my pages”

His fiction is fed by

• solid humanistic ideals,

• social conscience *, and

• particular sensivity to vital dependence that links NATURE to PEOPLE EARTH to MAN

Human condition as a main literary character


Cold Land Terra Fria 1934

Barroso Lands

Wool and Snow A Lã e a Neve 1947 Serra da Estrela Natural Park

Bra

sil

Po

rtu

ga

l

Fragments Os Fragmentos 1974 Vale do Guadiana Natural Park

Emigrantes 1928

Jungle A Selva 1930

Supreme Instinct O Instinto Supremo 1968


Emigrants • Scenario: Brasilian coffee farm of Piracicaba (S. Paulo state) Geographical approach:

• Scale: Man - Homeland – Country – Europe – Oceans - World… • Movement: from a Continent to another,

from North Hemisphere to South Hemisphere

Jungle • Scenario: Human-being confronting Nature in Brasilian Amazonia – “Green magesty”: “Seringal” - rubber tree forest – state of Acre Man exploring a natural resource :

• Poor South countries - workers submitting to forest vs. • Rich North countries - societies using those resouces

Supreme Instinct • Scenario: same Amazonia, with its “Madeira” river

• Defends Indian Parintintins – “popular heroes fighting without guns or blood” – attacked by white people Conservation instinct leads men to fight without keeling

Brasil 3 stories of men seeking for a better life abroad…


Cold Land

Portugal

• Scenario: Northern Portugal, within National Park of Peneda-Gerês

• Natural Environment: Winter: snow, winds and woolves; Spring: cultivated fields and flowery plants

• People living “between the mountain and the sky” – a landscape where “civilization” has not yet arrived and produces sullen peasants

Story of mountain poor people seeking for better life in Spain

• Habitat (Rural) • Land use: Agriculture • Adaptation and Resilience • Resistence and Survival

Ecology / Human Ecology concepts:


Wool and Snow

Portugal

Story of a people´s way from shepards and weavers to factory workers, from handmade to mechanical mass production

• Scenario: Central Portugal - Serra da Estrela National Park

• Natural Environment: peaks and valleys; granite and streams; creeping vegetation; snow and extreme cold…

• Human Ec.: People and their sheep flocks, in extremely poor houses

• Mountain ecosystem • Climate conditions • Land use: Grazing, rye crops • Competition • Resistence and Survival



Portugal Fragments

• Scenario: Southern Portugal, Vale do Guadiana National Park

• Natural Environment: Subsoil resource; Sunny and warm climate

• Human Environment: village of houses with no windows, no light

Story of a copper mine, and 2000 miners demanding better and healthier labour conditions

• Over exploitation: Man and Earth

• Pollution - Air - Visual - Health

• Resistence and Survival



So… In these 6 literary “Pórticos”:

* Resilience – Capacity to suffer outside pressure and get back to inicial state ** Resistence – capacity to suffer outside pressure and survive

Classic Ecology :

• Species – Population

• Comunity

• Ecosystem (jungle, forest, pastures…)

• Earth / Environment providing:

• Natural Recources : Wood, wool..

• Pressures

• Biodiversity

• Cooperation / Competition

HUMAN Ecology :

• Homo sapiens as special living species

• Urban habitat: little villages; rural comunities

• Exploitation and dependence

• Human resources: inventivity, …

• Diversity of human groups and settlements

• Human cooperation / Inter and Intra-species Competition

• Adaptation and Resilience*

• Resistence** and Survival


ALVES, Ricardo A. .s/d. Ferreira de Castro. Catálogo do Museu. Sintra, ed. Câmara Municipal de Sintra, 95 p.

BUELL, Lawrence. 2005. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Malden, USA, Oxford, UK, Victoria, Australia, Blackwell publishing, 188 pp.

COUPE, Laurence. 2000. The Green studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism. New York, Routledge, 315 p.

FRANCO, António C.. 1988. “O Significado da Selva na obra de Ferreira de Castro”, in Colóquio-Letras, Nº 104-195, Julho – Outubro, pp. 62-69.

GARRARD, Greg. 2004. Ecocriticism. The New critical idiom. London and New York: Routledge, Australia, Monash University, 197 p.

GLOTFELTY, Cheryl e FROMM, Harold (eds).. 1996. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. The University of Georgia Press, Athens and London, 409 p.

Some REFERENCES

Thank you for your attention

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