The Stage in Evidence: Foyer’s Journal Study (1891)

Abstract

The present work aims to rescue, in the course of history, the importance of Foyer’s journal and its influence on the emerging cultural panel in Brazil. Despite its ephemeral passage on the national scene, since Rio de Janeiro was practically the stage for major political, economic, cultural and, above all, literary transformations, the aforementioned periodical played a relevant role in a society in formation, by the scenes of a city which intended to become a cultural pole in the tropics. This is a survey conducted in the collection of periodicals of the National Library Foundation/Brazil, together with a bibliographic research. We conducted a study of the chronicles published in the newspaper Foyer, highlighting the importance of theater in the new sociability that was formed in Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century. This work was part of the project “Urban cartographies: centers and margins”, financed through the CNPq Research Productivity Scholarship - National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. Rio de Janeiro, under the strong influence of French culture, still breathed the air of a transition in which literature, theater and the growing interest in reading set the tone and decided the cultural direction of an emerging nation. In addition, serials, periodicals, newspapers, in general, and, in this case, Foyer, recorded, with singularity, the scenes of a population, of plural habits, that seemed to stage in life what happened on stages, mixing therefore, the daily life with theatrical art.