For an understanding of divine violence in education: analysis of the tale A Benfazeja from Guimarães Rosa

Abstract

In this article we will discuss the complex weaving of divine violence in the field of education and its configuration in the literature in a short story by Guimarães Rosa. The concept of divine violence was developed by Walter Benjamin, who perceived education as one of the examples for the appearance of this violence. Such analysis is also supported by the author's view as a keen literary critic, who expressed his understanding that art can be a manifestation of implicit contents, which are fragmented and buried by the story told in the official versions. In Benjamin's “deviation”, this analysis intends, in the light of philosophical hermeneutics and psychology, to seek an enriched and differentiated understanding that invites the reader to a deeper understanding of the text and what matters for a different view on education. Benjamin characterized violence in two types: mythic violence and divine violence. The author refers that mythic violence is named because it is cyclic, because it is repeated between the establishment and maintenance of the system. Divine violence breaks with the cycle, because it deposes the system, without the intention of putting anything in place, it only insurge, it rebels. In this sense, we will seek a possibility of opposition to the mythical violence that we understand as State violence (which holds its monopoly) and the maintenance of power, as Walter Benjamin explains in the text “For a critique of violence” (1921).