Abstract
This article deals with the debate between Sérgio Buarque and Gilberto Freyre - authors recognized as essayists in the 1930s - and the way they positioned themselves about this question in the literary supplement of Diário de Notícias. Holanda reverberates debates developed in the university circles and aligns himself in defense of academic studies, arguing that they could renew the intellectual life of the country and rupture with essayism. On the other hand, defending his intellectual project that began with Casa Grande & Senzala, Freyre held the essay to be a legitimate scientific form. He also suggested that it could renew academic studies carried out in other countries. The article investigates the debate to reconstruct the forms that it gained when it was produced, seeking to elaborate a genealogical reconstruction of the essay category at the moment in which it was constituted as a negative evaluation of the narratives about Brazil.
Keywords
historiography; essay; academic writing