“Tu és jesuíta”. A epistemologia inaciana de José de Alencar

Abstract

By reading one of José de Alencar’s plays called The Jesuit, this paper presents an analysis of certain political-discursive mechanisms that characterize the epistemology of the priests of the Society of Jesus in its colonial dynamics in Brazil, grounded on the development of some paradoxical identities. These identities compose the general framework of a Jesuit Baroque and are enigmatically presented as displacement and disappearance, as referenced in the issues faced by the play’s characters. The paper aims, at last, to evaluate how these components might allow us to understand that the link between the perspectives of José de Alencar and the Jesuits is not only thematic, but properly epistemological. Thus, it reconsiders the operation of identity dominance that underpins the narrative of the history of Brazilian literature.