The document discusses a presentation about the presence of nature and the environment in the literary works of Portuguese writer Ferreira de Castro. Specifically, it analyzes how six introductory texts ("Pórticos") to his novels depict Portuguese and Brazilian landscapes, and the extent to which they reflect ecological and human ecology concepts. It provides context on ecocriticism and human ecology as cross-disciplinary lenses for analyzing literature. Finally, it outlines Ferreira de Castro's 10 novels set in various regions of Portugal and Brazil from 1928 to 1974, noting how his fiction explored the vital dependence between nature, people, and the earth.

1. Human Ecology in
Portuguese Literature:
Images and concepts in
Ferreira de Castro’s novels
Ana Cristina Carvalho
FCSH – UNL, Lisbon, Portugal
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

2. Presentation aims an overview of the presence
of Nature and Environment in the literary work
of Portuguese writer Ferreira de Castro*, by
interpreting on how six “Pórticos”* to his
novels picture Portuguese and Brazilian
landscapes (natural and humanized), and in
what extent they reflect Ecology / Human
Ecology concepts.
* Artist who showed a particular “Way of felling the world”
* Pórticos – Writer’s personal introductory texts
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

3. • Literature – expression of human thinking
independent of science, contains in its different styles -
novels and tales, dramatic texts, chronicals … -
a potencial of difusion of ecological values
• Literary language and culture plays a role in building
human perception of Natural World
Makes sense to cross
SCIENCE Knowledge ART (Literature) knowledge
Cross-disciplinary Ecocriticism
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

4. Ecocriticism:
Green studies, Enviromental literary criticism, Literary ecology …
• Analysis and criticism of literary text concerning its content
in Nature and ecological subjects
• “Literary ecology” created in 1972 by Joseph W. Meeker:
“the study of biological themes and relationships which appear
in literary works”
• “Ecocriticism” coined 1978 by American William Rueckert,
although in 1923, Norman Foerster’s Nature in American
Literature was pioneer book of this new academic field
Today, we try to identify concepts of human
and non-human nature in Ferreira de Castro
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

5. Human Ecology:
• Systemic and interdisciplinary approach to understand
bio-socio-cultural dimension of human-being
• Born in the 20’s of xxth century * - Chicago School -
responding to the complexity of problems of Human
population in American megacities
• A scientific field relating ECOSPHERE to SOCIALSPHERE
• Intersection NATURE Sciences HUMAN/SOCIAL
Sciences
SHE (Society for Human Ecology):
Relation Arts (specialy Literature) - Ecology
is one of its several departments
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

6. Portugal… A strongly humanized territory - its Natural
Patrimony strictly connected to human activity
This connection was captured and pictured by
high sensitivity of writer Ferreira de Castro
His novels:
• Example of how Literature shows no
immunity to Nature
• Reveal an influence of
• local land rhythm
• place spirit
• environmental practices
… linked to
• human work
• human well-being
• human pain
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

7. Ferreira de Castro
(1898 - 1974)
Stands out among Portuguese literary
scene with work of great aesthetical and
ethical density and wide outreach
Between 1928 - 1974 writes ten novels
picturing several areas of Portugal and
Brasil, and wide Journey Literature
His roots were rural and poor Portugal on early XXth century Leaves
alone to Brazil at 12, and spends adolescence in Seringal Paraíso
Worldwide translated during XXth century. Masterpiece Jungle was
one of ten books most read in the world, acording to UNESCO, 1973
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

8. Ferreira de Castro
In Portuguese newspaper O Século, 1964,
confesses an “irresistable fascination” for
“great and green landscapes” and “it was
in company of Nature that I wrote most of
my pages”
Human condition as a main literary character
His fiction is fed by
• solid humanistic ideals,
• social conscience *, and
• particular sensivity to vital dependence that links NATURE to PEOPLE
EARTH to MAN
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

9. Supreme
Jungle
A Selva 1930
Instinct
O Instinto
Supremo 1968
Emigrantes
Brasil
1928
Portuga
Cold Land
Terra Fria 1934
Barroso Lands
l
Wool and Snow
A Lã e a Neve 1947
Serra da Estrela Natural
Park
Fragments
Os Fragmentos 1974
Vale do Guadiana
Natural Park
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

10. Brasil
3 stories of men seeking for a better life abroad…
Emigrants
• Scenario: Brasilian coffee farm of Piracicaba (S. Paulo state)
 Geographical approach:
• Scale: Man - Homeland – Country – Europe – Oceans - World…
• Movement: from a Continent to another,
from North Hemisphere to South Hemisphere
Jungle • Scenario: Human-being confronting Nature in Brasilian
Amazonia – “Green magesty”: “Seringal” - rubber tree
forest – state of Acre
 Man exploring a natural resource :
• Poor South countries - workers submitting to forest vs.
• Rich North countries - societies using those resouces
Supreme
Instinct • Scenario: same Amazonia, with its “Madeira” river
• Defends Indian Parintintins – “popular heroes fighting without guns
or blood” – attacked by white people
 Conservation instinct leads men to fight without keeling
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

11. Portugal
Cold Land
Story of mountain poor people seeking for better life in Spain
• Scenario: Northern Portugal, within National Park of Peneda-Gerês
• Natural Environment: Winter: snow, winds and woolves; Spring:
cultivated fields and flowery plants
• People living “between the mountain and the sky” – a landscape
where “civilization” has not yet arrived and produces sullen peasants
Ecology / Human Ecology concepts: • Habitat (Rural)
• Land use: Agriculture
• Adaptation and Resilience
• Resistence and Survival
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

12. Portugal
Wool and Snow
Story of a people´s way from shepards and weavers to factory
workers, from handmade to mechanical mass production
• Scenario: Central Portugal - Serra da Estrela National Park
• Natural Environment: peaks and valleys; granite and streams; creeping
vegetation; snow and extreme cold…
• Human Ec.: People and their sheep flocks, in extremely poor houses
Ecology / Human Ecology concepts: • Mountain ecosystem
• Climate conditions
• Land use: Grazing, rye crops
• Competition
• Resistence and Survival
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

13. Portugal
Fragments
Story of a copper mine, and 2000 miners demanding better
and healthier labour conditions
• Scenario: Southern Portugal, Vale do Guadiana National Park
• Natural Environment: Subsoil resource; Sunny and warm climate
• Human Environment: village of houses with no windows, no light
Ecology / Human Ecology concepts: • Over exploitation:
Man and Earth
• Pollution - Air
- Visual
- Health
• Resistence and Survival
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

14. So… In these 6 literary “Pórticos”:
Classic Ecology : HUMAN Ecology :
• Species – Population • Homo sapiens as special living
• Comunity species
• Ecosystem • Urban habitat: little villages;
(jungle, forest, pastures…) rural comunities
• Earth / Environment providing: • Exploitation and dependence
• Natural Recources : Wood, wool.. • Human resources: inventivity, …
• Pressures • Diversity of human groups and
• Biodiversity settlements
• Cooperation / Competition • Human cooperation /
Inter and Intra-species Competition
• Adaptation and Resilience*
• Resistence** and Survival
* Resilience – Capacity to suffer outside pressure and get back to inicial state
** Resistence – capacity to suffer outside pressure and survive
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10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho .

15. Some REFERENCES
ALVES, Ricardo A. .s/d. Ferreira de Castro. Catálogo do Museu. Sintra, ed. Câmara
Municipal de Sintra, 95 p.
BUELL, Lawrence. 2005. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis
and Literary Imagination. Malden, USA, Oxford, UK, Victoria, Australia, Blackwell
publishing, 188 pp.
COUPE, Laurence. 2000. The Green studies Reader: From Romanticism to
Ecocriticism. New York, Routledge, 315 p.
FRANCO, António C.. 1988. “O Significado da Selva na obra de Ferreira de Castro”, in
Colóquio-Letras, Nº 104-195, Julho – Outubro, pp. 62-69.
GARRARD, Greg. 2004. Ecocriticism. The New critical idiom. London and New York:
Routledge, Australia, Monash University, 197 p.
GLOTFELTY, Cheryl e FROMM, Harold (eds).. 1996. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks
in Literary Ecology. The University of Georgia Press, Athens and London, 409 p.
 Thank you for your attention
10 th International Congress of SIEF - Lisboa, Abril 2011 Ana Cristina Carvalho . 15