Instruction, education, and national sentiment:the Brazils imagined by José Veríssimo and Guimarães Rosa

Abstract

This article examines the Brazils imagined in The National Education, by José Veríssimo, published in 1890, and in The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, by João Guimarães Rosa, published in 1956, highlighting differences and similarities of the authors’ understanding of the role of literature, school, instruction, and public education in the formation of the social and cultural identity of an imagined Brazilian nation.