A Revista Cerrados configura-se como um veículo de divulgação do pensamento teórico literário, publicada quadrimestralmente pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Literatura da UnB.
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Literatura da Universidade de Brasília
Proibida a reprodução parcial ou integral desta obra, por qualquer meio eletrônico, mecânico, inclusive por processo xerográfico, sem permissão expressa do editor (Lei n. 9.610 de 19/2/1998 )
This article analyzes the novel O Voo da Guará Vermelha (2005), by Maria Valéria Rezende, through the notion of self-invention and the development of subjectivity as a means of subverting the characters’ marginal condition. Drawing from the concept of affective realism, the research seeks to explore identity constructions beyond trauma that can serve as pathways to resistance. The journey of the main characters, Rosálio and Irene, through memory and fictionalization, proposes a mode of emancipation that allows them not only to reconstruct their individual histories but also to build a narrative that places them in a new space within collective memory. The article engages literary and cultural memory theorists to demonstrate how the novel reconfigures the subaltern experience through the imaginary.
O realismo e sua atualidade: 25 anos de crítica literária dialética na UnB
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Literary criticism and the role of the intellectual in the works of Antonio Candido and Pier Paolo Pasolini
Realistic art is essential for individuals to understand the contradictions of reality, particularly in modern societies where alienation prevails. In addition to art, the scholar also plays a mediating role, utilizing their critical activity to reach layers of society that artistic works cannot access. In that regard, this work aims to discuss the importance of art as a mediator of reality and the role of scholars in social critique and intervention within capitalist contexts. Its methodology consists of a comparative literary analysis, focusing on the works of Antonio Candido and Pier Paolo Pasolini. The results suggest that these writers manage to harmonize political and aesthetic aspects in their literary analyses, representing an organic and honest critique even in scenarios of oppression.
This paper presents the work of Alberto Caeiro, Fernando Pessoa's Naive Master, through a dialogue between his poems and the philosophical ideas of authors such as Feuerbach, Hegel e Marx. Thus, we present an analysis of poem VIII of The Keeper of Sheep, a text in which the use of the satirical method of artistic composition is evident. We analyse the question of satire, based on the theory of György Lukács, and its occurrence in the work of Alberto Caeiro — a poet who immediately embodies the contradiction between “the poet as he should be”, the ideal poet, and “the poet as he is”, the dissimulated poet — in addition to the farcical architecture of Pessoa's heteronymy. Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms are presented as actors in a satirical dramatization in which decadent bourgeois thinking and the dilettante tendency of the modern intellectual are mimetized. We argue that the satirical representation created in Pessoa's literary project is the realist achievement of his poetic work.
For Lukács, true literature takes shape when the representation of reality is set up in such a way that it is possible to understand the human essence and reach critical awareness in relation to the logic of the organization of the world. This relationship emerges when the novel uses a specific literary method, the realist, articulating two main aspects: the typicality of the characters and the narrative method under the primacy of action. Taking this into consideration, this paper aims to develop an exercise of interpreting Lukácsian realism based on a reading of the contemporary Brazilian novel Os supridores, by José Falero (2020). Therefore, we focus our analysis on the composition of the character Pedro and the reading of the world provided by the narration of this story. The methodology used was qualitative bibliographical research, basing the analysis mainly on Lukács (1965) and researchers who review and interpret the concepts of this theorist (Bordini, 2003; Braga, 2018; Frederico, 2013; Perrone, 2003). Finally, we hope that the analysis contributes to an initial reflection on the perception of realism in this novel, which contributes to the critical emancipation of its reader as it represents, with verisimilitude, social experiences that express violence, exploitation at work and social exclusion. — drawing on Adorno and Benjamin — how such procedures and their object of representation (the human) also articulate something about the transforming world that shapes these very subjects — both the represented and the artist.
Tramas dialógicas do cancioneiro brasileiro
Considered one of the most important writers in Latin America, Silvina Ocampo's short stories address themes that move between the strange and the fantastic that permeate the daily life of social life. In the work A Fúria e Outros Contos, published in 1959, the tales transfigure experiences that mix fantasy and the grotesque by problematizing human relationships. In this narrated world, is there any proposal for the future? By facing a dystopian present, is it possible to create possibilities for another sociability? This essay, therefore, aims to study, in the aforementioned work, the relationship between the formal and thematic organization characteristic of Ocampo's texts and the meaning that is constructed in them, confronting the cruel destiny to which his characters are subjected and the humanizing promise contained in the literary work, in its aesthetic effect.
This study examines the relationship between typical characters and more or less stereotyped ("schematic") literary genres, with a special focus on robinsonades. The research addresses three central questions: the minimum determination imposed by the genre on characters, the limits of intertextual transformations of these characters, and the interaction between character, genre, and historical-literary evolution. For this, a work by critic Noé Jitrik is analyzed, along with the theoretical contributions of Gérard Genette, Marie-Laure Ryan, and David Fishelov. The results indicate that robinsonades require only two essential traits: the main character must be a survivor and be isolated. The recognizability of the genre is preserved through a “generic landscape,” but also through the cultural dissemination of the figure of Robinson Crusoe. The analysis of historical development reveals transformations in the secondary traits of characters, ensuring the genre’s continuity, although with a significant distancing from its original model. In this way, we aim to contribute to both the study of the reception of schematic literary genres and the further development of the theory of fictional character.
This study undertakes a creative investigation of the narrative in 'Grande Sertão: Veredas', aiming to reconstruct the musical and poetic elements of its discursive fabric within a song. The work begins with evidence about the sonority of João Guimarães Rosa's writing, from the perspective of the relationships between music, literature, and the popular songbook. Considering the premise that rhythm is the mechanism through which the layers of meaning in Riobaldo's narrative to his interlocutor move, particularly those related to the devil, the song 'O medo da gente' was produced as a musical translation of this mechanism. With this, the study seeks to demonstrate that the crossing of the great backlands is achieved in the dimensions of rhythm, melody, harmony, and word.
In this article, we propose an analysis of the song Parabolicamará (1992) by Gilberto Gil oriented by concepts and methods of “semiotics of song” (Tatit, 2011). In addition to the obvious descriptions of scales, rhythmic patterns, verses and berimbau pattern used in capoeira circles, we seek to question the reason for using these elements, what function they fulfill in the composition and what meanings they allow for. The narrative axis of the song offers the possibility of considering the friction between synchronic and diachronic aspects, as well as a certain technological contrast. Precisely this coexistence of current and traditional technologies and the opposition between mobility and permanence described in the song will be the object of analysis in this text.
This article aims to investigate the set of transformations that occurred within the realm of samba during the 1970s, highlighting how these changes played a crucial role in consolidating a new model of Black cultural organization. This process, in which the history of the Cacique de Ramos bloco plays a fundamental role, led to the formulation of a new linguistic paradigm, whose most refined expression is found in the artistic production of Grupo Fundo de Quintal. The group was largely responsible for formally synthesizing the complex process of sociocultural transformation that samba in Rio de Janeiro underwent during this period, expanding its artistic horizons and reaffirming it as a significant expression of Black identity in urban Brazil. Based on the perspectives of Martins (2021), Pereira (2022), Santo (2016), and Sodré (1998), we propose the hypothesis that the consolidation of the Cacique de Ramos paradigm, promoted by the group Fundo de Quintal, played a decisive role in the process of shaping modern samba.
Literary critics have long assessed the impact of oral tradition in João Guimarães Rosa’s works. In this field, allusions to the Brazilian cancioneiro offer many topics for research. Based on Cultural studies and following a comparative and genetic approach, this article examines Guimarães Rosa’s allusions to the Brazilian cancioneiro. The object of analysis is the travel diary A Boiada (2001), written during a trip in 1952. The study indicates that the repertoire collected by the author, as part of a creative process of writing, allows highlighting cultural aspects of the society that cultivated it, in the region of Minas Gerais; and how Guimarães Rosa expresses some musical genres of the cancioneiro in his literary style. In this sense, the cancioneiro is an important source of inspiration for the author’s fictional prose.
This paper aims to analyse the song “Lindoneia” (Caetano Veloso - Gilberto Gil), recorded by Nara Leão for the album Tropicália ou Panis et circencis (1968). That recording not only marks Nara's fundamental contribution to Tropicália, but it is also an example of how the tropicalist movement is characterised by its musical diversity and its critical capacity. In order to meet such aims, it is necessary to show how this song mobilizes ethical and aesthetic elements, considering the Brazilian historical moment at the time. Furthermore, qualitative research was carried out based on bibliographic and iconographic research, in addition to the researchers' own musical collections, so as to verify how the song dialogues with works by other artists. Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of “answerable act” was crucial to support our arguments. This paper is organized in three sections: the 1st) aims to comprehend how tropicalists undertook an answerable act in the context of their productions and their insertions in the public debate, whilst the 2nd) investigates how Nara Leão undertook such a task; finally, the 3rd) aims to investigate how “Lindoneia” is the result of artistic stances marked by ethics and aesthetics. (2013) and Blay (2009)
Parameters for critical reading of the song in Chico Buarque's late work
The work focuses on the constitution of the self of the song in two songs from the album Caravanas (2017), by Chico Buarque: “Tua cantiga” and “As Caravanas”. It is assumed that the album can be conceived as a strong synthesis of both the Brazilian song system and Chico Buarque's own work prior to the 2000s. Thus, in many ways, Caravanas is a commentary on two sociocultural symptoms of Brazil contemporary: i) the “death of the song”, as a form of a properly aesthetic reaction to the end of the integrating fantasies of the nation’s imagination and ii) the “social fracture”, as a founding fantasy of Brazil’s modern imagination. The two songs are configured as maximum expressions of the problems that surround these two symptoms. The aesthetic problems of voice construction in each of them are, therefore, scope privileged to see, through literary and song forms, the dynamics of the contemporary social process underway in the country. Among these elements, the fictionalization of the lyrical self, the poetic address, the specific modes of song intonation and the presence of archaic poetic-musical elements, ritualistic elements from the Western literary tradition and others extracted from the great culture of the black diaspora that founded the song form itself in Brazil.
SÁ, André Corrêa de. Ecofagias I – Portugal. Lisboa: Gradiva, 2023.
In Caetano Veloso's work, the presence of choral practices is certainly substantial. From his early albums to the most recent ones, it is possible to observe the existence not only of a uniform chorus, so to speak, but also of different types of choruses, which are tied, according to our premise, to three modalities: (i) the consonant chorus, when the crowd sings together and in tune; (ii) the dissonant chorus, when there is a polyphonic chaos in which the voices do not align and enter into a sort of conflict; (iii) the hybrid chorus, when there is, in the same song, a double character, all due to the presence of a consonant chorus and a dissonant chorus. Diving into the songwriter's career, we selected some representative works of the theme, songs from different moments and albums, always supporting us in varied critical and theoretical discussions, with the aim of outlining a new analysis and a new hypothesis about one of the most recognized intellectuals in the history of Brazilian song.
The pains of wounded motherhood in songs by Chico Buarque
Recognizing the artistic potential of the poet-singer Chico Buarque de Holanda, we seek to identify the borrowing of his lyrical-poetic voice in representing women in their different ways of existing in the world. To do this, we will investigate the unfolding of the faces of the feminine projected in the songs “Angélica” (1981) and “O meu guri” (1981), with the aim of analyzing the lyrical self constructed from the figure of the mother in its tragic unfolding after the announcement of the death of her children. Therefore, the text aims to identify the poetic and symbolic elements inscribed in the songs that support a lyric or narrative that reveals the pain of motherhood in its encounter with the loss of a child, an unnatural and distressing process in its various layers. In the first song, the aim is to find possible relationships with the archetype of the Great Mother and other myths proposed by Erick Neumann (2021), Adélia Bezerra de Meneses (2001), Marta Robles (2006), Luiz Tatit (2014) and others. However, in the second song, the social marks of “being on the margins” are read from the theoretical framework of Adélia Bezerra de Meneses (2001) and Rinaldo Fernandes (2013).
Notes on the image of women in brazilian poetry of colonial origin
The technical and artistic mastery of poets produces meaning and effect that document aspects of gender relations in the formation of Brazilian society. This article presents a study of poetic images of colonial origin based on a selection gathered from the poetry of Father José de Anchieta (1954) and the Popular Songs of Brazil, collected by Sílvio Romero (1883). These are the images of the “saint,” the “savior,” the “housewife,” and the “street woman,” drawn from the categories of “religiosity” and “family,” and which are part of the Catalogue of Images of Women in Portuguese-Language Poetry (Grillo, forthcoming). The study draws on concepts such as gender performativity (Butler, 2018) and symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 2012) to reflect on behaviors inculcated in Brazil by the Iberian-origin patriarchy, both in so-called “erudite” poetry and in the popular songbook.
This article investigates the aesthetic dynamics of “samba esquema noise,” a track featured in the CD and streaming versions of the album of the same name, released in 1994 by the band Mundo Livre S/A. To undertake this critical exercise, we examine the relationship between the musical and discursive elements. Upon understanding the mechanism of this track, we concluded that it constructs the experience of games of chance, paradoxically expressing a sense of hopelessness regarding the possibility of real change.
A lírica realista de Bernardo Élis em Primeira Chuva
Less known than his narrative work, Primeira Chuva is the only volume of poetry by the writer from Goiás, Bernardo Élis. Therefore, we sought to understand how the author made his poetic production, notably realistic, an opposing representation to his position as an intellectual foundation between the modernization project mediated by the interventor Pedro Ludovico Teixeira from 1930 onwards. To this end, we carried out a historiographical path guided by Machado (1990), Chaul (1988) and Chaul (2018) aiming to understand the intrinsic approximation between modernity as a requirement for progress, and how this association occurred in the state of Goiás, especially after the dictates of the so-called Revolution of 1930. Through literary historiography, we resorted to Teles (2019), Canedo (2018), Bergamo and Canedo (2021) and Buarque (2017) aiming to understand how modernist aesthetics was established as a project of the local intelligentsia, especially from 1942 onwards, since it is in this that Bernardo Élis signs up. Towards textual materiality, we are guided by the principle of relative autonomy of poetry (Pilati, 2017), taking into account the internalization of aspects external to the literary text undertaken by the author.
Humor, and satirical elements in I married you for happiness by Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg is considered one of the most outstanding authors of 20th century Italian literature, although she is best known for her novels and essays, her contributions to the theatrical genre were transcendent, whose vast production includes eleven works written between 1964 and 1991. This article aims to analyze the particular features of humor and the satirical elements present in her first play, I Married You for Happiness (1965), in order to light on the contradictions of the middle classes, while at the same time postulating certain conflicts over women's rights in the context of the play's production.
Natalia Ginzburg, theater, humor, satire
Brás Cubas and the tradition of seignorial narrators
According to a dialectical theory that associates literature with society, the hypothesis of this article suggests the existence of a tradition of seignorial narrators in Brazilian novels. With the main characteristic being the presence of a narrator character who belongs to a seignorial class placed in fictional situations, this tradition begins with Brás Cubas and continues with Bento Santiago, João Miramar, Serafim Ponte Grande, Carlos de Melo, Paulo Honório and Riobaldo. In all cases, there is a contradiction to be deciphered between the narrative focus and the compositional plan of each novel, with the narrative focus occupying a partial foreground and the composition an impartial background. The reader is then involved in a realistic and dialectical aesthetic experience in which the partial versions are overcome in favor of a contradictory perception of reality. Following the historical and geographical trajectory of the members of the tradition, it will be possible to develop a comparison of some relevant authors for Brazilian literature: Machado de Assis, Oswald de Andrade, José Lins do Rego, Graciliano Ramos and João Guimarães Rosa.
In this essay, as the title itself suggests, the intention is to analyze how a historical novel project is outlined in the plot of the book A estirpe (2023), by the Argentine author Carla Maliandi (1976). Ana, the protagonist of the novel, is a writer and researcher engaged in the project of writing a book that addresses the history of her family, deeply connected to the Conquest of the Desert or Desert Campaign, a military campaign carried out by the government of the Argentine Republic under the orders of General and future President Julio Argentino Roca (1843–1914), against the Mapuche, Tehuelche, and Ranquel peoples, aiming to gain territorial control over the Pampa and eastern Patagonia, which until then were under indigenous control, known as “Wall Mapu”. However, after suffering an accident that takes away her memory, Ana must resume her personal life and the forgotten project. A estirpe is a unique book that combines the peculiarities of a historical novel, family drama, and personal narrative in a plot that intertwines randomness, historical events, family setbacks, anguish, and estrangement. The literary project of the novel transcends its pages, as it seeks to account for a Latin American history filled with lapses, violence, and trauma.
LOCKS ON THE POLEMICAL HORIZON OF BRAZILIAN LITERARY CRITICISM
The article starts from the evidence that theoretical trends that have consolidated in Brazilian literary studies over the past two decades dismiss the exercise of literary criticism that reflects on the dialectical relationships between aesthetic form and social matter. Taking into account formulations with various origins, it seeks to point out that the generalization or unreflective 'application' of certain notions and propositions valued at the moment converges to the refusal of elementary procedures of dialectical criticism, which in turn results in the interception of an entire critical accumulation and undermines the value of knowledge from careful reading of the singularity of the works. To demonstrate this, the argument revolves around influential guidelines in the agenda of academic debates, based on a series of recurring expressions in the university lexicon.
This paper examines two interpretations of Chico Buarque’s song “O meu guri” and seeks to reveal how their interpretative aspects suggest different positions and worldviews, thereby modulating the song’s poetic content. A close examination of Chico Buarque’s own 1981 performance can offer an alternative understanding of the song, especially of the lyrical speaker, who has been interpreted as a naí ve woman unable to recognize her son’s illicit activities. Contrary to these ideas, we argue that Chico Buarque’s version suggests a mother who is fully aware of her son’s actions and even celebrates the experiences he managed to enjoy despite his tortuous path. In contrast, Elza Soares’s 2015 performance seems to embody the pain of the mother, who, faced with a harsh socioeconomic reality, finds herself powerless. Thus, this study seeks to show that the meanings of this song cannot be grasped solely through an analysis of its poetic content, but require an examination of how this content is activated and reconfigured in the performances of both artists.
The remains of the empire in O esplendor de Portugal, by Antonio Lobo Antunes
In this paper, we discuss theoretical and critical aspects concerning the contemporary Portuguese novel of decolonization, notably the literary production of António Lobo Antunes (1941), with emphasis on the novel O esplendor de Portugal (1997). The analytical approach adopted aims at the narratological framework of the aforementioned narrative form, in the present day, regarding the historical episode of the end of the Lusitanian colonial empire, the aesthetic-ideological developments of the Carnation Revolution and the sociocultural issues related to the presence of returnees from the African continent after April 1974 in Lisbon.
The reversal of history in Dom Casmurro and Esaú e Jacó
This short text is the final considerations of the doctoral thesis defended in December 2019. Since the text seeks to systematize the discussions of the thesis, as well as clarify some points that were more or less developed during the course of its content, we chose to leave it as it is, in order to maintain both the strong and weak points of the elaboration; we believe that this should not make it difficult to read, since the text aims to clarify not only the ideas to the reader, but also to the author himself who had discussed them during the thesis. It is important to mention here that this thesis sought to compose a somewhat hybrid discussion, reading Machado de Assis from the point of view of the consolidated critical fortune, and, as far as possible, including Lukács in the reading, which is not innovative, but still something unusual for Machado's criticism, although Lukács's theses have gained strength in recent years with regard to Machado de Assis's work. The result was salutary, so to speak. Among the many contributions made by the panel of examiners, one was quite emblematic: at one point, one of the examiners asked: During his thesis, was it Lukács who questioned Machado or vice versa? This question still remains unanswered, but it sheds light on the effort of the thesis, since it places the novelist and the critic on an equal footing, and, since both are great, the question corroborates the need to expand this type of study.
Três Macabéas: Clarice, Zulmira, Conceição
Este artigo se propõe a pensar o diálogo entre o romance A hora da estrela (1977), de Clarice Lispector, e os contos “Região”, (2002), de Zulmira Ribeiro Tavares, e “Macabéa, Flor de Mulungu” (2023), de Conceição Evaristo. Trata-se de compreender de que maneira a personagem Macabéa é livremente recriada por duas escritoras contemporâneas brasileiras, a fim de demonstrar como a noção problemática de identidade, central na obra de Clarice, ressurge nas formas concebidas pelas autoras a partir da perspectiva do neoliberalismo, seja para dar conta de uma realidade volátil, seja para postular uma essencialidade oportuna ao capitalismo tardio.
This article focuses on the song “Hoje quem paga sou eu” (“Today I’m the one who pays”), composed by Herivelto Martins and David Nasser, performed by Nelson Gonçalves on his 1956 album O tango na voz de Nelson Gonçalves (Tango in Nelson Gonçalves’ voice). By examining its lyrics in conjunction with its musical aspects, we seek to show that, beyond a narrative about marital unhappiness, the song formalizes an opposition between the poles of order and disorder, in Candido’s terms (1970). For that, the article initially situates Nelson Gonçalves within the symbolic debates surrounding Brazilian phonographic production in the 1950s. It then revisits Antonio Candido's (1970) essay on the novel Memórias de um sargento de milícias (Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant) and discusses how these ideas resonate in a study of malandragem in samba (Vasconcellos; Suzuki Jr., 2007). Finally, the text examines the formal elements of “Hoje quem paga sou eu” (“Today I'm the one who pays”) and seeks to reveal how the song formalizes a suspicion of the most popular classes of our society in relation to the process of modernization.
Aspects of the question between theory and practice in Theodor Adorno today
The article analyses positions of Theodor Adorno regarding the relationship between theory and practise. Based on the jointed trajectory of reason and revolution in the history of philosophy, traces an itinerary that reaches Brazil’s current dilemmas. Commenting on considerations made by the brazilian literary critic Roberto Schwarz, concludes that the tension in the dialectic of non-identity posed by Adorno remains a fruitful and unavoidable problem, both for critical thinking and for the political conjuncture.
Irony and satire in the representation of progress
The aim of this paper is to analyze how Eça de Queirós and Machado de Assis sought to represent the reality of their historical period in literary terms through the use of irony and/or satire, aesthetic devices based on a logic of contrasts that can express the contradictions of progress within the nineteenth-century bourgeois capitalism. In this regard, the short stories Civilização, by Eça de Queirós, and O alienista, by Machado de Assis, will be examined. Through these texts, the differences between irony and satire will be explored, irony being a tool widely used by both authors, and satire being a method that underpins the realistic power of O alienista, but which is absent in Civilização. This paper is a synthesis of the Master’s thesis “Ironia e sátira na figuração do progresso e do atraso na periferia do capitalismo: Eça de Queirós e Machado de Assis”.