Assim falou Emília: a recepção da filosofia de Nietzsche no Sítio do Picapau Amarelo de Monteiro Lobato (1920-1944)

Abstract

This dissertation investigates and interprets the reception of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy in Monteiro Lobato's work Sítio do Picapau Amarelo, focusing on the character Emília. The study analyzes how the Brazilian writer appropriated Nietzschean thought to construct the authentic, combative, and creative intellectual posture that marked his life and work. The research adopts the approaches of Intellectual History by Quentin Skinner, Reception Aesthetics by Hans Robert Jauss, and the History of Intellectuals by Jean-François Sirinelli. These frameworks are articulated based on Michel de Certeau’s and Roger Chartier’s conception of reception as a plural, interpretative, and meaning-multiplying reading. The methodological path traces Lobato's itineraries, struggles, and networks of intellectual sociabilities, as well as analyzing his reading of Nietzsche and the writing of his literature within a historical context. The main sources comprise the twenty-three books of Lobato's children's literature, published between 1920 and 1944, and the letters collected in the book A barca de Gleyre. The study examines the appropriation of Nietzschean thought by the writer and finds that Nietzsche encouraged Lobato toward independence and the creation of the self as an exception, based on self-reliance and the will to follow only himself. The analysis demonstrates that Sítio do Picapau Amarelo is configured as an enchanted space of experimentation and freedom, considering the child as an agent of their own processes of knowledge, creation, thought, and imagination. The work verifies that the writer incorporated the Nietzschean perspective that breaks with the child versus adult dichotomy. It is concluded that Emília personifies Nietzsche's philosophy, appropriated with intellectual and emotional involvement by the writer. In the body of Lobato's rag doll are woven the fabrics of ludic games, play, and the philosophical allegory of the eternal child, in the mold of Nietzsche's elaboration. Among the characteristics present in Emília's patches, insubordination, self-affirmation, critical authenticity, and fidelity to oneself stand out, revealing her as a free spirit. The aroma of the innocence of becoming can also be sensed through the yellow macela flowers that fill the doll's body. The human-doll personifies the interplay between the two dimensions of Nietzsche's philosophy: the combative and the constructive. The doll presents herself as both lion and child. She creates new values while breaking old ones. Emília—our Child Zarathustra!