Una vida de Juana Paula Manso: deslocamentos, construção da personagem e rede de conhecimento em Cómo se atreve, de Silvia Miguens

Abstract

The Argentine writer Silvia Miguens (1950) presents the dialogue between literature and history as a striking feature of her work. It is also noted the predominance of female protagonists, in this way, it is possible to identify the general profile of her publications which began in the 1990s. In this logic of literary production, the work that makes up the focus of this analysis, the book Cómo se atreve. Una vida de Juana Paula Manso (2004), fictionalized the also Argentine writer Juana Paula Manso de Noronha (1819-1875). Thus this work seeks to analyze the protagonist Juana Paula, especially regarding her intellectual and professional training process, considering the more intimate look suggested by Silvia Miguens, in addition to identifying the connections with other historical women through the protagonist, revealing a network of knowledge among them and also through them. This qualitative and bibliographic-based study has among its main references Jozef (1986; 2005), Menton (1993), Hernandes (2017) and Trouche (2006) for the study of productions of narratives of historical extraction, as well as Hutcheon (1991) and García Gual (2013) and their approaches about historiographic metafiction and biographical clipping novel, respectively; Candido (2014) and Brait (2017) with discussions about character, our main analytical category; Lewkowicz (2000) and Zucotti (1998) with their works on the historical figure of Juana Paula Manso, in addition to texts by Juana Manso herself, published especially in periodicals such as Jornal das Senhoras (1852) and Álbum de Señoritas (1854), for example; Lacerda (2003), Lerner (2019), Perrot (2017), Wolf (2020) and Hooks (2019) regarding intellectual formation, patriarchy issues, and women's struggles; Fiorin (2008; 2021) and his considerations on intertextuality; Burke (2017) and his approach about exile and knowledge production; Candido (2011) and his reflections on the ability of literature to teach in different ways. In view of the proposed objectives, it was verified that Miguens manages to impart a more intimate character to the narrative, valuing a little-known and/or explored side of Juana Manso's life. In addition, it was found that the displacements and influence of Juana Paula’s father were fundamental in her intellectual formation and that, in fact, the narrator reveals, throughout the chapters, a network of knowledge by bringing other historical figures to the text – especially women – in connection with the main character of the novel, besides Juana Manso's own texts that are intertextually integrated into the narrative. Miguens succeeds in her mission shed light on Manso and keep her alive centuries after her birth, awakens the interest to go beyond the literary text, linking knowledge and other literary works