LITERATURE AND EATING IN JOSÉ DE ALENCAR

Abstract

Under the assumption that a romantic fictional character is made from a real person model, recognizing the literary aspects employed by the novelist on the constitution of the plot seems to be pertinent for the reception of one’s work. In this regard, eating could be considered a valuable expression on the framing of spaces that invite the conviviality for fictional conflicts, as well as an interesting figure to characterize places and characters. From a chosen corpus of José de Alencar, this paper will establish parallels with French gastronomy studies, proposed by Brillat-Savarin and by Balzac, and also utilize literary critic concepts, introduced by E. M. Forster and Antonio Candido, to build up and explore scenes of meals, eating and gastronomic aspects used by the novelist for composing his works. The focus will be on the study of extracts selected from his works where eating and ingredients appear as central elements in the fictional composing, but also in the inspection of how these elements could be part of the local color in the literary project of Alencar.