The place of criticism and contemporary Brazilian thinking

Abstract

It is implausible not to notice the various perspectives through which literary criticism has passed over time. Sometimes more focused on the form, structure, text, sometimes on the content, context, and reception, the fact is that Brazilian critical thinking has been divided dichotomically during the twentieth century and has often reinforced a pernicious Manichaeism and duality that were - perhaps exhaustingly - overcome by contemporary criticism. This overcoming occurred mainly because the critics reexamined their own discourse, revising it in the face of the changes that their time demanded. Before being taken as a mitigating factor to an undeniable truth, as a practice in construction, this discourse was perceived to be distant from the univocal disciplinary space, since both its objects of study and its methods are marked by a provisional, temporary and ephemeral character, due to its intrinsic connection to temporality, which sought to (de)institutionalize what is understood, was understood or will be understood by literary. Thus, the present article aims at reflecting on the place of criticism, considering its field of action, its methodological forms, its non-disciplinary character, supported in turn by the never-ending epistemological conversation among the knowledges, which characterizes the contemporary Brazilian thinking.