Nas bordas da autoria: a escrita errática dos cadernos de Maricota (1850 – 1937)

Abstract

This article analyzes the writing of Maria da Glória Quartim de Moraes (1850 – 1937) formed by the corpus (five notebooks, one diary and another fifteen loose sheets) preserved in the Valdomiro Silveira Fund, at the Brazilian Studies Institute (IEB – USP), through the lens of the double invisibility to which memories produced by Brazilian women born in the 19th century were relegated. The heterogeneous texts (reports, diary entries, cooking recipes, notes on expenses and maxims) are marked by two axes: married life and political matters. Behind Maricota's erratic writing, as she was called by family and friends, is a woman who wrote a lot and who, despite her conservative discourse, developed an authorial voice, creating a space on paper to express her opinions in a hostile context. The double silencing can be understood in the engendering of two factors: excluded from the formative process of Brazilian literature (SCHMIDT, 2019, p. 65) and demoted as a historical, political and cultural subject, women of the ruling class choose memories as a possible textual genre. Since memories are considered “average writing, within the reach of anyone, without value” (LEJEUNE, 2004, p. 8), the authorship of these texts does not take place, because, as Foucault observes, the author's statute is legitimized according to society. and the cultural context of an era.