Published in Mirabilia Journal 34

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12._art.pedrofonseca.pdf

The representation of the natural reality of America epitomized in the chronicles of Colonial Brazil is permeated by a dichotomous posture situated between wonder and utility, whose teleological values can be perfectly verified in medieval references. Using the comparative method and favoring the study of cultural ideas, this article examines the plausibility of the presence of the medieval bestiary and the process or trope of the feminization of the colonial natural reality, configuring oscillations between the simple enjoyment of the wonderful and its practical usefulness. The terms of this dialectical formation are examined in this article seeking to identify its limits in the configuration of reality in the chronicles of Colonial Brazil. In this way, two pillars in the article are approached, namely, the symbolic tradition of the so-called bestiary books and the tropological tradition of the feminizing discourse of reality, both of an ideological and political nature. Therefore, a curious but explainable formation of values were strategically conceived to legitimize the European intentions in the possession of the American lands in colonial times.