Vieira entre o religioso e o literário: uma leitura de apreciação crítica do Sermão da Primeira Dominga da Quaresma e do Sermão de Santo Antônio aos Peixes.

Abstract

In the seventeenth century, sermon genre was used repeatedly by Christian preachers in the pulpits of religious institutions, with the primary function of convincing listeners of the importance of religion for the orientation of that society. Antônio Vieira was a preacher who stood out in the period for the power of persuasion and creativity, notorious in his sermonistic discourse. This work has, thus, as general objective to discuss the occurrence of literary aspects in two of the sermons of the priest Antonio Vieira, namely: Sermão da Primeira Dominga da Quaresma (sermon of the first Sunday of Lent) (1653) and Sermão de Santo Antônio aos Peixes (Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Pisces) (1654), which also present a very typical religious and political foundation common at that time. For this, we revisit some concepts that allow us to understand the text in relation to literature, we also revise the main functions of the literary genre sermon, considering the period in which Brazil became Portuguese colony, and then we analyze the literary aspects present in these sermons, taking into account the representativeness made possible by the stylistic of the period. To support our analysis, we corroborate with the literary theory proposed by Silva, V. (2010), also with Coutinho's (2004) study of baroque aesthetics, Chaui's (2011) research on the ideology of discourse and Roncari's (2002), on the importance and function of the sermon in colonial Brazil. From the theoretical-methodological point of view, this is a bibliographical research, exploratory type and with a qualitative approach, since we seek to be closer to our object of study, from readings, documentation and annotations for understanding and exposing the data. Based on this study, it is possible to affirm that Vieira knew how to balance both literary and religious aspects of his productions, even in a time troubled by conflicts arising from politics and religion camps. We find that we can find in these two sermons, besides the historical and social representation, elements of creation and rhetorical elaboration that confirm traces of literary expression in the eloquent speaker.