The meaning and the feeling of history in Gilberto Freyre’s O Outro Amor do Dr. Paulo

Abstract

The article seeks to understand the discursive and, in this particular case, literary strategies used by Gilberto Freyre in constructing the historical time of O outro amor do Dr. Paulo (1977), the sequel to his fictional duology initiated in 1964. To this end, the reading of the work is guided by the theoretical framework developed by Reinhart Koselleck in Futuro Passado (2006), articulating the notions of “space of experience” and “horizon of expectations,” as well as examining how these concepts are mediated through the narration and/or description of historical events and structures. In this context, Freyre’s novel is interpreted as an exemplary case of the critical incorporation of historical material into fiction. As the continuation of Dona Sinhá e o Filho Padre (1964), O outro amor intensifies the interplay between reality and fiction by presenting the character Paulo Tavares as a supposedly historical figure, reconstructed through testimonies and documentary traces. Thus, the article aims to clarify how the historical time developed by Freyre highlights, beyond a discussion of late nineteenth-century fin-de-siècle decadence, contrasted with a distinctly Brazilian tropical modernity, a deliberate enrichment of this historical time through the blurring of the boundaries between the real and the fictional. Ultimately, it argues that these representations function not merely as historical setting, but as a mechanism for constructing a sense of historical time in which the nineteenth-century past is retrospectively reinterpreted by a narrator situated in the early decades of the twentieth century.