A cidade de Ouro Preto (MG) nas impressões do escritor Gilberto de Alencar

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation, presented to the Graduate Program in Letters at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), analyzes the book first edition of Cidade do Sonho e da Melancolia (Impressões de Ouro Preto) (1926), by Gilberto de Alencar, with the aim of critically examining the literary representation of the city of Ouro Preto (MG), formerly Vila Rica, as constructed through travel narratives. The analysis highlights the writer’s pioneering role in the debates concerning the recognition and preservation of the city as a cultural and historical heritage of Minas Gerais and of Brazil. In this sense, the study aims to demonstrate that Alencar was able to interweave memory, history, and literature, through an engaged and innovative perspective within the society of Minas Gerais. In order to achieve this, the research is structured around the biographical and professional trajectory of the author, discussing the reasons for the scarcity of studies on him and his work; it further examines the influence of the historical and literary context on the writer’s production, emphasizing the sense of regional belonging shaped by the myth of mineiridade. Subsequently, the analysis focuses on Ouro Preto, addressing its resistance to time and its elevation to the status of national and world heritage; this culminates in the examination of the work itself and of the literary representation in terms of its construction, purpose, and singularity. This scope combines historical contextualization, reflection on the city, and heritage recovery, together with a detailed literary analysis, revealing the duality of dream and injustice that pervades Alencar’s Ouro Preto.