EMBODYING THE NATION: LITERATURE AND DIPLOMACY IN BRAZIL by JOSHUA ALMA ENSLEN (Under the Direction of Susan C. Quinlan) ABSTRACT Since its independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil has had an impressive number of influential literary figures to become diplomats, conducting official negotiations between Brazil and other nations. Writers such as Domingos José Gonçalves de Magalhães, Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Manuel de Oliveira Lima, João Cabral de Melo Neto, João Guimarães Rosa and Vinicius de Moraes—to name only a few—have all represented Brazil through its Ministry of External Affairs, Itamaraty. These writers evoke a politics of national representation in the literary and diplomatic fields, navigating not only the world of international politics, but also coming into close contact with other literatures and cultures, as they work abroad. In this way, diplomacy places them in an advantageous position from which distinct literary perspectives on Brazilian history and identity can be conceived in a comparative light. This work is roughly divided into two sections. The first half contextualizes the writer-diplomat tradition in Brazil from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. This portion of my study considers the role of important intellectual institutions in the consolidation of this tradition, such as the Instituto Histórico Geográfico Brasileiro (founded in 1838) and the Academia Brasileira de Letras (founded in 1897). Following this broad theoretical and historical contextualization, the second half analyzes specific literary works by three writer-diplomats from the immediate post-World War II period within the contexts of their diplomatic careers: João Guimarães Rosa, Vinicius de Moraes and João Cabral de Melo Neto. The study of the relationship between literature and diplomacy in Brazil not only reveals insight into the development of themes and narratives of certain authors’ works, but also helps to further clarify many of the colonial and global aspects of Latin America’s interconnected politico-cultural histories and identities. INDEX WORDS: Cold War in Latin America; Diplomacy in Brazil; Intellectual History in Brazil; Literature in Brazil; Magalhães, Domingos José Gonçalves de; Melo Neto, João Cabral de; Moraes, Vinicius de; National Identity; Neocolonialism; Oliveira Lima, Manuel de; Postcolonialism; Rio Branco, Barão do; Romanticism; Rosa, João Guimarães; Vieira, Antonio EMBODYING THE NATION: LITERATURE AND DIPLOMACY IN BRAZIL by JOSHUA ALMA ENSLEN B.M., University of Alabama, 2002 M.A., University of Georgia, 2004 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2008 ©2008 Joshua Alma Enslen All Rights Reserved EMBODYING THE NATION: LITERATURE AND DIPLOMACY IN BRAZIL by JOSHUA ALMA ENSLEN Major Professor: Susan C. Quinlan Committee: Lesley Feracho Robert H. Moser Luiz F. Valente Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2008 iv DEDICATION To my wife, Alaina, and our two beautiful children, Cole and Ila—may we always remain as close as we have while living in Family and Graduate Housing, Apt. 110-D. And to the future—may it be filled with love, laughter and the patter of little feet. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although this document bears only my signature (and I assume full responsibility for its contents), my dissertation is, as are most works of scholarship, the result of intense collaboration. There are a number of people whose help has made this dissertation possible, and to whom I am wholeheartedly thankful. In this section, I have attempted to express appreciation to all those people without whose help this project would have been impossible. First and foremost, gratitude is due to Susan C. Quinlan, who, as my major professor, has guided me at every twist and turn of the process. Thank you for providing intuitive and helpful feedback while still allowing me sufficient space to develop ideas on my own. A great measure of thanks is also due to Robert H. Moser for encouraging my initial inquiries into literature and diplomacy in Brazil, and for the many one-on-one discussions about the topic. I am also grateful to both of you for serving as my mentors throughout my graduate career. The coursework has always been engaging and your feedback and criticism well-received. I am indebted to Lesley Feracho not only for being a part of my dissertation committee, but also for broadening my interests regarding national identity and literature through engagement in the classroom, catalyzing my study of peripheral cultural discourses through readings of José Marti and others. Thanks also Lesley for the many impromptu conversations regarding the job search and for your responses to my other miscellaneous and often random inquiries. vi Likewise, I am particularly grateful to Luiz F. Valente from Brown University who, without any institutional onus, graciously accepted the invitation to join my committee. Your diligent responses to my incessant emails and especially your insightful readings have been essential to the development of this project; not to mention, the guidance provided by your scholarly publications on literature, citizenship, identity and intellectual history in Brazil. Luiz, thank you also for inviting me to participate in the Intérpetes do Brasil session at BRASA 2008 in New Orleans. The experience was unforgettable and I hope I did not disappoint. I look forward to future collaborations and engaging discussions with all members of my committee. Valeu mesmo! Thanks are also due to Isabel Lustosa and Antônio Herculano, from the History Sector at the Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa (FCRB), for orienting my research while I was there. Antônio, your correspondence since has been greatly appreciated, and I look forward to future conversations on the topic of literature and diplomacy. Likewise, thanks to Leonardo da Cunha and other members of the FCRB staff for your archival expertise. I also express my appreciation for the indispensable assistance of Rosiane and, more especially, Miranda at the Arquivo Histórico do Itamaraty. The timely and successful completion of my dissertation would not have been possible without the information gathered at Itamaraty and FCRB in Rio during the summer of 2007. I am indebted to Paul Duncan and others at the University of Georgia’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute whose travel grant, made in conjunction with the Tinker Foundation, facilitated my research in Brazil. vii I would also like to sincerely thank Iêda Siqueira Wiarda from the Department of Political Science at the University of Georgia for being the first person outside of my department to take an interest in my project. Your guidance has been crucial and your advice always earnestly considered. I would like to thank Teresa Malatian at UNESP-Franca, not only for your scholarly work, which I have utilized in the elaboration of my dissertation, but also for your help with my article “Between Diplomacy and Letters: A Sketch of Manuel de Oliveira Lima’s Search for a Brazilian Identity,” which appeared in UNESP’s journal História 24.2. Revised portions of that article appear in Chapter 3 of my dissertation. I also would like to thank Jasmina Arsova, recent editor of UCLA’s graduate journal Mester, whose encouragement spurred the successful publication of “The Hour and Turn of João Guimarães Rosa: Symbolic Discourse and Death in the Academia Brasileira de Letras.” Significant portions of that article, which was published in the special issue Mester XXXVI: Memory and History: Remembering, Forgetting and Forgiving, have been included in Chapters 3 and 4. And last, but certainly not least, I send a grande abraço to my parents—two small-town Southerners who have just returned from a year in Cambodia—for their unconditional love and support. Even from thousands of miles away, I could feel your warmth and encouragement as if you were right by my side. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... v CHAPTERS 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................1 2 Embodying the Nation: Towards a Theory of Literature and Diplomacy .....................9 3 Literature and Diplomacy in Nineteenth-Century Brazil .............................................32 4 From Writing the Nation to Writers-as-the-Nation: Antonio Vieira and João Guimarães Rosa .......................................................................................................62 5 Geografia In(de)terminável: João Guimarães Rosa’s Grande sertão: veredas and the (Meta)physical Borders of Brazil ...............................................................95 6 Vinicius de Moraes, “Pátria minha” and the Feminization of Brazil ........................125 7 Diplomacy and the Dog: Citizenship and João Cabral de Melo Neto’s O cão sem plumas……….. ..............................................................................................156 8 Conclusion .................................................................................................................195 WORKS CITED ..........................................................................................................................198 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................213