A Grécia pelos olhos dos picapaus: Lobato e sua Leitura da Grécia Antiga

Abstract

In some of his most famous books, Monteiro Lobato takes the characters of the Sítio do Picapau Amarelo to Ancient Greece and tells stories in which Emilia, Narizinho, Pedrinho, Tia Nastasia and Dona Benta interact with important characters of mythology and history of Hellenic antiquity. But Lobato does'nt it, so to say, in a free and impartial way. As he tells his stories, he reveals which are his views on the ancient Greeks and these viewpoints, often can be quite biased. But when we try to understand where these views come from, or when we do a search in what remains of his library (eg the Cultural Center of Documentation "Alexandre Eulalio" in IEL-UNICAMP) to know what books Lobato read and in which way those readings marked his interpretations of the ancient Helens, then it is clear that his opinions were based on the ideology of the so-called "Greek Miracle." This type of conception, according to which all the achievements of ancient Greece could not be adequately understood as a simple succession of historical events, has had great acceptance in the academic world of the end of the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century. My aim with this article, is to discuss some passages from some of Lobato's works for children, especially 'The Minotaur' and 'The Twelve Labors of Hercules', where Lobato presented his personal views on the Ancient Greece, and to show his affiliation to authors, especially the second half of the nineteenth century, who theorize about the 'Greek Miracle'. Furthermore, it is my intention to show that Lobato was taking distance to the world of adults and approaching the universe of children at the same time that he was plunging into mythological and classical Greece.