What matters reading good books: Inácio de Loyola and Father Antônio Vieira

Abstract

In this article, an analysis of the Autobiography of Loyola and the Sermon to St. Ignatius, by Father Antônio Vieira, investigating important aspects narrated by Loyola and taken advantage of by Vieira, related to changes in reading modes for lay men: solitary reading , intimate, interior, individual. These new ways of reading began, according to Foucault, in the 14th century, with Devotio Moderna, propagated by the Brothers of Common Life. Transformations that would be considered by Ariès and Chartier as the greatest advance of modernity The path of discourse analysis takes into account that both Inácio de Loyola and Padre Vieira express in their writings what was visible to them as members of a Catholic religious order, of the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively. The study of the narrative and the Sermon to Saint Ignatius reveals that the Jesuits, although inscribed in modernity, remained firm in the defense of a religious mentality of disciplining what the faithful should or should not read. In the 16th century, time of Loyola, the dangers of solitary reading involved the interpretation, understanding and writing of texts by lay people, out of the control of the Catholic Church. In the 17th century, time of Vieira, the attack on the authority and tradition of the Church was due to the rational/scientific mentality that was established in Europe at the same period.