Seleta em prosa e verso (1884-2001): um olhar sobre a tradição escolar e os materiais didáticos no Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

As literature teachers and consumers of didactic materials, we need to understand the historical bias of our profession and the path it has taken so far, which is often quite difficult due to the gaps that still exist. With this in mind and aiming to contribute to the construction of this historical renewal, we aimed to analyze the work of literature Seleta em Prosa e Verso (1884-2001) by Alfredo Clemente Pinto (1854-1938). Like Antologia Nacional (1895-1969) by Fausto Barreto (1852-1915) and Carlos de Laet (1847-1927), which is an important national work directed to readings by high school students, Seleta appears as a respectable collection of texts in school reading, being present in the memories of the students throughout Rio Grande do Sul State who flipped through its pages. Therefore, based on the attempt to construct a history of reading and, at times, dialoguing with the legacy of the rhetorical tradition and contexts of production of the various editions of the work (59 in total, throughout 115 years), we seek to reflect on its relationship with teaching and literary history in Rio Grande do Sul State. First, we intend to theoretically understand the process of literature education and the trajectory of didactic materials in the region. Next, we will create a biography of Clemente Pinto, which is still quite obscure due to the scarcity of sources, and then explore Seleta em Prosa e Verso by analyzing the texts present in its 51 editions using representative editions of the work. The results - for now - indicate the presence of Seleta in a literary and school tradition based on the economic, political, and ideological ideals of its context of production. Given the above, we hope to contribute to studies that focus on textbooks and the schooling of reading and literature, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries in Rio Grande do Sul State.