Who sows the Word? A look at the author-function in Antonio Vieira's sermons

Abstract

There is an author in the sermons analyzed in this paper. Much more, the sermons analyzed were selected based, especially, on a premise: a specific author work, Antonio Vieira. It is undeniable that the notion of author and subject are irrevocably linked. In fact, what common sense understands by authorship is directly linked to the concept of a post-enlightenment subject, already imbued with independence and self-centeredness, with an inalienable commitment to authenticity and originality, as it is understood in common sense the text reflect the author's inner world. We propose, then, to reflect on the notion of authorship in the Father Antonio Vieira’s work in view of a confessional, missionary, priestly 17^th century textual production, in which neither the notion of subject nor that of contemporary literary author are fully adequate to the socio-cultural context. seventeenth-century politics. As main guides for the analysis, we follow the thinking of Michel Foucault in dialogue with Walter Benjamin, Antonio Candido, and João Adolfo Hansen. We also reflect on the importance of language for the humanist theology that inspired the seventeenth century Jesuits, and Father Antonio Vieira himself, observing how much the ideal and most perfect exercise as a spokesperson for the Word of God is present in the sermons given and, after a lifetime, finally written by the influential sermonist.