Bicho-homem ou homem-bicho? Uma leitura ecocrítica de Bichos, de Miguel Torga

Abstract

This study aims to carry out a reading of the collection of short stories Bichos (1940), by the Portuguese writer Miguel Torga (1907-1995), through the ecocritics, seeking to verify aspects related to environmental criticism and its contributions to questions about the condition of human life in its natural environment. Therefore, the analysis intended here will be divided into two stages, the first being aimed at delimit the concept of ecocritic and seek its dialogues with Torguian tales; and the second, in the reflection on the construction of these protagonists, with the articulation of four concepts that branch out: Bioethics, Biocentrism, Sustainability and Topophilia. It is known that literature intrinsically has a historical relationship with social media, and nature would be no different. However, the thoughts critics of human interference in nature and its ecological implications, which originated at the end of the 18th century, were only consolidated after the second half of the 20th century, as well as its echoes in literature. The work Bichos, by Miguel Torga, has its first publication in 1940, in a period prior to the stabilization of this line, but where one can already observe an effervescent incursion of these debates. So being, in a reading proposal from an anachronistic theoretical-critical path, I opted here for the analytical bias of ecocritic, leaving the paths already outlined in its critical fortune, with presentist and neorealist emphases. It is intended, therefore, underline the interaction between animals, including humans, with themselves and its physical space, allowing reflections and questions inserted in a critical debate, political and, above all, ecological of these relationships.