The epistolary writing as an object of research: a stuy about the Brazilian princesses’ letters

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira de Aguiar, Jaqueline
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Chaves Vasconcelos, Maria Celi
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34624/id.v9i3.628

The present work has as its object the epistolary writing, showing the methodological proceduresrelated to a qualitative research approach, with a historical-documentary focus, in which theresearch does not refer only to the content of the missives analyzed, but also to the evidencedmateriality, examining the value of items such as a writing of the text, a used ink, trademarks found,symbols such as margins, drawings, colors, whitespace, dating, treatments and closures, a sign-inand a post-writing . The main sources of the work are, such as documents, such as letters and ticketsexchanged between the Brazilian imperial family, during the period of education of the Isabel andLeopoldina princesses, from 1854 to 1864, belonging today to different archives and collections,located at the Imperial Museum in Petrópolis / Brazil. The bibliographical reference used dialogueswith authors who make use of methods and techniques applied to the analysis and interpretationof egodocuments, as well as researchers who study letters in their autobiographical possibilities,among them, Flexor; Bastos, Cunha and Mignot; Sierra Blas; French; and Gomes. It is concluded thatthe documents are fundamental for a historical reconstruction, allowing multiple glances about asame period and event, in this case, the process of formation and education of the future heirs ofthe Brazilian throne, as Isabel and Leopoldina princesses. In addition, it can be seen that epistolarywriting allows the historian a better view of the characters he intends to portray, even though it isnot possible to possess definitely his object.