This paper highlights a collection of seven essays on Brazilian Literature, written in the early 1940s and published in the Estado Novo review Cultura Política, as part of the intellectual production of the sociologist Alberto Guerreiro Ramos. Starting from the assumption of a link between the development of literature and of a national identity in which the political purpose is emphasized, these essays reflect the main theme of a book that the author intended to write but did not complete on the formation of a national literature. Through an examination of these essays this paper attempts (1) to insert Guerreiro Ramos in the sociological study of Brazilian literature, whose major exponent and founder was Silvio Romero (2) to view Guerreiro Ramos in the context of the nationalist project advocated by the Novo Estado, and most importantly (3) to understand the notion of sociological reduction in its early state in the thinking of the author.
Guerreiro Ramos; Sociological reduction; Estado Novo; Revista Cultura Política