Na tessitura da ficcionalização: Lima Barreto e o tema da loucura

Abstract

In this article, we intend to demonstrate that, although living in the context of the Belle Époque, the writer Lima Barreto chooses a path contrary to what was then preached in terms of science and knowledge. At that time, Naturalism was still on the agenda and largely guided the literary productions of contemporary intellectuals, so that attempts were made, through the lens of literature, to affirm the power of Science and its representatives, as a way of conceiving Brazilian modernization. The writer traces an intellectual trajectory opposite to that of the naturalists, as he himself reports, given his extremely critical nature of the events and paths that Brazilian intellectuals insisted on following.