LOCKS ON THE POLEMICAL HORIZON OF BRAZILIAN LITERARY CRITICISM

Abstract

The article starts from the evidence that theoretical trends that have consolidated in Brazilian literary studies over the past two decades dismiss the exercise of literary criticism that reflects on the dialectical relationships between aesthetic form and social matter. Taking into account formulations with various origins, it seeks to point out that the generalization or unreflective 'application' of certain notions and propositions valued at the moment converges to the refusal of elementary procedures of dialectical criticism, which in turn results in the interception of an entire critical accumulation and undermines the value of knowledge from careful reading of the singularity of the works. To demonstrate this, the argument revolves around influential guidelines in the agenda of academic debates, based on a series of recurring expressions in the university lexicon.