Irony in the Peregrinação

The first part of the article is a review of some of the principal critical writings about Mendes Pinto's famous book, from the seventeenth century to the twentieth, drawing attention to the important but forgotten work of the nineteenth-century scholar, José Feliciano de Castilho. In the second part there is an attempt to reconcile the contradictions of the critical tradition by a reading which emphasizes the rhetorical use of irony in the Peregrinação, both verbal and situational. Mendes Pinto's ironical attitude to man and his works is undercut by his faith in divine Providence

Art · Epistemology · Faith · Irony · Linguistics · Literature · Reading (process · Rhetorical question · Situational ethics · Theology · History of Colonial Brazil · Philosophy