Leitura e recepção de A hora e vez de Augusto Matraga (2005-2017)

Abstract

This dissertation aims to conduct an analysis of the novella “A hora e vez de Augusto Matraga”, the last narrative in Sagarana (1946), the first work of the writer João Guimarães Rosa, as well as carrying out an analysis of its critical reception among the years 2005 and 2017. Our reading of the novella is based on the proposal of a hermeneutic nature made by the German scholar Hans Robert Jauß (2002), according to whom, in order to have the most complete possible understanding of a given text, many consecutive readings are necessary to be made. Our analysis of the critical reception of the work, in its turn, is mainly based on the concept of aesthetic experience also developed by Jauß (1969), which, concerning it, is divided into two levels, namely: pre-reflective and reflective. The first is the moment in which the reader, in his interaction with the literary text, is involved by it; the second, which may or may not occur after the former, is the occasion in which the reader critically turns his attention to the work, in order to understand, by relating that to his previous knowledge, thereby expanding his understanding of the world and himself . The texts to be analyzed were, initially, chosen through the reading of their abstracts, since we intended to have a general idea of the themes and forms of interpretation applied to the work. Among the texts of reception of our corpus, our analysis is concentrated on 10 of these, namely: Rolim (2005), Leitão (2006), Truzzi (2007), Benedetti (2008), Pereira (2009), Lacerda Neto (2012), Sousa (2014), Oliveira (2015), Ribeiro (2016) and Vital (2017). As a result, we could observe that there are both divergent interpretations, in relation to one or other point, as well as convergent interpretations, which assume the same perspective in relation to another point, with the predominance of an interpretation of a religious and another of philosophical nature. Our conclusion is that any text that aims to offer a definitive interpretation for a work according to one or another thought can be refuted, in view of the multiplicity of contrasts that compose a work.