Mirages of the “Promised Land” and the Midwest of the border

Abstract

When we look at cultural practices and Brazilian literature produced in Mato Grosso, we find in the poetics of Dom Francisco de Aquino Corrêa (1885-1956), Maria de Arruda Müller (1898-2003), and the prose of Maria Benedita Deschamps Rodrigues (Dunga Rodrigues 1908-2002), a creative production with looks at the themes of the “eldorado”, the “promised land”. The authors provide poetic images based on observed local scenarios in which they embark on a journey through the landscapes and culture of Mato Grosso as the Hebrew people set off in search of the land of promise. There the archetypal images refer to the axes of the symbolic representation: of space - the eldorado and the search for the Promised Land, reconfigured in the image of paradise - and of the Mato Grosso man, while at the same time conjoining the utopian images of the promised land and the ancient universal archetypes.