THE SACRED TRILOGY: THE SYMBOLIC CONSTRUCTION OF COLONIAL BRAZIL IN THE PORTUGUESE IMAGINATION

Abstract

This article investigates the symbolic construction of colonial Brazil in the 16th and 17th centuries, articulated around the imagetic triad of Paradise, Hell, and Purgatory—categories that shaped the theological worldview of Portuguese colonizers. Grounded in the conceptions of the sacred developed by Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade, as well as Jacques Le Goff’s notion of mirabilis, Brazil is interpreted as a mythical and theological space marked by both fascination and fear, eschatological promises and demonological anxieties. This ambivalence projects the territory alternately as a place of spiritual regeneration and paradisiacal abundance or as a stage of damnation and dread. Religious discourse guided practices of catechesis, discipline, and territorial appropriation, turning the region into a site of tension between the sacred and the profane. Drawing on the rhizomatic approach of Deleuze and Guattari, the article conceptualizes Portuguese America as a liminal space—an emblematic frontier zone that resists binary classifications and is defined by its plasticity and transience. Within this framework, the colonial imaginary emerges as a fluid system interwoven with affects and mechanisms of power: contemplation, fear, desire, faith, and violence in a web of ever-shifting meanings.