“Helpful and friendly letters”: Epistolography in Correio da Roça, by Júlia Lopes de Almeida

Abstract

Júlia Lopes de Almeida was a significant figure in Brazilian literary history, achieving success as a woman writer at the beginning of the 20th century. Over the past two decades, critical reception has increasingly sought to analyze Lopes de Almeida's writing style and her positions within the Brazilian belle époque. Regarding Correio da Roça (1913), the subject of this article, while critics have explored its themes extensively, its structure has received comparatively less attention. This article addresses this critical gap by questioning the designation of the book as a "primer" and, instead, highlighting the centrality of the epistolary genre in shaping the work's composition and unifying its diverse themes. For this analysis, we draw on key studies of the epistolary genre in its literary form, including works by Altman (1985), Sussekind (2003), Diaz (2016), and Haroche-Bouzinac (2016). Through this lens, we propose that the missives within the novel serve a purpose beyond mere information exchange; they actively encourage the correspondents to seek knowledge through observation of the world and to cultivate their autonomy of action.