Female intelligentsia at new school: a margin-free reading of the chronicles of Cecília Meireles (1930-1932)

Abstract

This text seeks to expose reflections about the New School (1932) moviment, through the chronicles published by the Brazilian intellectual Cecília Meireles (1901-1964) in the Diario de Noticias in Rio de Janeiro, in the early 1930. Considering the principles of New Historiography (BURKE, 2010), we are based on different documents that dialogue with the aforementioned records, locating them in time and space for writing and circulation, as indicated by the concept of bookkeeping followed. (CERTEAU, 2017; LUCA, 2008). Given the choice of the newspaper as the main source, we analyzed the ideal of child and teacher, propagated by the master, extracting, with their support, the concept attributed by her to the category democracy, claimed by the Escola Nova in its limitations and contradictions. The journals, the main information vehicles for such times, made it possible to formulate sociability networks between representatives of the most varied segments, being, therefore, a rich material for historical investigations. (LUCA, 2008). We noticed that, when discussing the common problems in Brazil and America, from the beginning of the 20th century, the character favors microscopic visualization of the mentioned segments. It is similar, once distancing itself from the other Escanovistas. In the context of educational modernization, she exposed peculiarities and globalities of her feminine, teaching and literary gaze.