Os fugitivos e os mastins: Em torno dos homens brutos de Cairu

Based on the work of José da Silva Lisboa, the Viscount of Cairu, this article discusses the imaginary place of the Other in civilization. The objective of the article is to inquire into and explore the distance that separates civilized people from barbarians. In the intermediate space between civilization and barbarity, social literature plots out the frontier where civilized discourse revives fantasies of regression and poetically evokes the horror of a return to the jungle. This is a long literary tradition which, in Brazil, has Euclides da Cunha as its master.