Analiza los conceptos críticos y teórico literarios con que se ha valorado el corpus literario colonial brasileño. Propone una reformulación del estatuto de los textos coloniales y del canon de apreciación literaria de la escritura de los siglos XVI y XVII. The article analyzes the literary critical and theoretical concepts with which the Brasilian colonial literary body of work has been evaluated. The author proposes a reformulation of the traditional interpretation of the colonial texts and of the precept of literary appreciation for the writing from the XVI and XVII centuries.