Tempo memorial e tempo histórico: uma leitura de Eurico, o Presbítero

Abstract

The purpose of this research is a reading of Alexandre Herculano´s Eurico, o presbítero. In this study, we examine Herculano not only as a historical novelist, but as the author defines himself in his prologue, a "poet-chronicler," in other words, the guardian of the memory, the Portugal´s identity. In this perspective, we realize that Herculano, by alternating in his work poetry, through the memories worked in a subjective way, and chronicle, used as a literary record of historical facts, then chronological memory, had the intent to actually protect from the forgetfullness the reference of Portugal´s identity. He really wanted to be the guardian of it. From this perspective, we are led to a journey through time, through St. Agostinho and Aristóteles´s theories. The collective memory earns the status of guardian´s identity. Supported in Bachelard and Ecléia Bosi´s theoris, we will treat the function of the memory and, respectively, of the images that populate it and are rebuilt through the imagination of the novelist. Also important to note, in Herculano´s work, some theoretical´s influences proposed by Rousseau, such as the return to the nature in the search for a purification for the romantic author, through the removal of a society he can´t tolerate. Herculano, rebuilding the Middle Age, also created an intertextuality between his novel and Bernardim Ribeiro´s work, who was highly estimated in his period, which shows that, as Bernardim, Herculano wanted that his novel were read on two levels: a critic and a romantic way. We defend, therefore, that in the novel, we found the idealization of a rebuild of the self, based on the interface man versus nature, as this is the purification way of the society that is in a corruptive process, so the intent of the author is not limited to be the guardian of the memory, but, the incenter for the creation of a new Portuguese identity