Descobrindo Angola: o discurso poético de Viriato da Cruz e a luta pela Independência

Abstract

Submerged in an unknown sea, this dissertation sheds light on Angolan literature, by proposing an unprecedented analysis of the speech for independence in the work of Viriato da Cruz. The motivation for this study lies in the little that is known about him, the lack of awareness of the importance of his short literary production in popular engagement in the freedom movements. Focusing on the rhetorical-discursive strategies of political mobilization in his only published work, Poems (1961), presenting as a triggering resource for the decolonization process of the African continent, documentary and bibliographical research is carried out, using the theoretical-methodological approach of Analysis of Critical Discourse by Fairclough (1989, 1992, 2003), Wodak and Meyer (2001), to understand the ideological role of literary discourse in the production, maintenance and change of social relations of power. The discursive polyphony about and against colonialist ideology presents an unexplored perspective that is inserted at the heart of the Salazarist Regime, inspired by Darwinist biopolitics and the Brazilian luso-tropicalism of Gilberto Freyre (1933, 1940). The discursive counterpoint is constructed by him within the limits of Marxism, by challenging hegemonic structures such as Eurocentrism, patriarchalism and progressive ageism. It is also investigated how an intellectual movement whose motto: “Let's Discover Angola!” mobilized popular unrest that resulted in the creation of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, giving birth to a tireless politician in the newly-born poet. This research reveals how linguistic, grammatical, semantic and syntactic choices, including the lexicalization of the colonizer's language (European Portuguese) and the African Bantu language of the colonized (Kimbundu), engender an intertextual richness capable of, in a single verse, intertwining troubadour song and Brazilian concrete poetry. With this, Viriato da Cruz faced the ideology of the Estado Novo and made poetry an invitation to revolution, testifying that literary discourse inhabits an unknown and powerful vehicle of social transformation.