The guidelines, regulations and prescriptions related to the class work with literature in Portuguese Language were analyzed taking the basic curriculum of high schools of the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. This body of information was interpreted taking into account contemporary research on literature teaching and literary education for the work with literature at school in order to identify theoretical affiliations, trends and pathways of the state's official proposals and parameters, considering its context on literature and literary reading education, having a larger understanding on that issue. We conclude that there is persistence of traditional perspectives, focusing the directive relationship between social context and literary production and in a positivist historiography, even though they are correlated with the changes demanded by renovating or renewed concepts, such as the focus on text-reader interaction and on the constitution of subjective reading.
curriculum; literary education; high school; Espirito Santo