ABSTRACT
The travel literature that relates to relations between France and Brazil dates back to pre-colonial times when, at least in the 12th century, mythic narratives circulated in Europe, and described, imagining, the territory that the Portuguese will call Brazil. Carrying out a chronological outline, we dedicated ourselves to the study of two 19th century French travelers, practically contemporary, Ferdinand Denis and Auguste de Saint-Hilaire. Our reading, in the first part of the article, is based on the approximation between the Indianist novels by Alencar, Iracema and, above all, O Guarani, and a fictional work by Denis, the short story “Les machakalis”, in order to highlight the representation of the indigenous in the two authors. In a second moment, we compared Voyage aux sources of the S. Francisco river et dans la province de Goyaz, a travel account by Saint-Hilaire, with the literary works of Alencar and Denis in order to highlight the image that the French botanist defines for Brazil and that retakes, in a certain sense, the founding myth of the country, strongly linked to the indigenous, of a verdant garden.
KEYWORDS:
Ferdinand Denis; Auguste de Saint-Hilaire; reports of French travelers