O prazer estético diante das atrocidades narradas por Erich Remarque e Guimarães Rosa

Abstract

This dissertation selects as corpora the novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) and the chronicles “O mau humor de Wotan”, “A velha”, and “A senhora dos segredos” in Ave, palavra (1970) by Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967). For the reading of the German novel whose subject revolves around the First World War, and the rosianos texts molded by the context of the Second World War, it is proposed to apply the theorists Márcio Seligmann-Silva (1964) in O local da diferença (2005), Zygmunt Bauman (1925) in Modernity and the Holocaust (1998), and Hannah Arendt on Eichmann in Jerusalem (1906-1975) (1963), and The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). It aims to discuss the corpora from different perspectives on the war in order to understand how literary narratives can contribute or even cause tensions for theory. The central approach of this thesis is the examination of the corpora under the reception-aesthetic method formulated by Hans Robert Jauss (1921-1997), and the Hermeneutic defined by Benedito Nunes (1929-2011) in Hermenêutica e poesia (1999), as well as the German theorist dialogues with his master Hans Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Thereby, it focuses attention on the transcendental historicity and the state of being. According to the theories about the war from the Brazilian theorist, it will elapse two moments in this research, the first will be the application of the psychoanalytic principles of trauma, shock, war neurosis, among others, while the second will be the questioning of the location of the difference on its proposal of overlap of the ethical over the aesthetic. In relation to the Polish sociologist, beyond the treatment of these literary works under his understanding, we will consider through the aesthetics of All Quiet on the Western Front the possibility of point out elements that can lead to ask for the lesson of reason against emotion, which according to Bauman is only noticeable in the Holocaust. However, bringing closer Remarque and Guimarães, it will be observed by means of aesthetic elements, obviously different from sociology, that this notion can be reversed to show that the most notorious relation between reason against emotion is in the German novel than in rosianas chronicles. In the case of the German thinker, it will examine how the novel All Quiet on the Western Front offers analyzable images by the theory of Arendt, as well as shows complex characters that consent to trivialize evil, after think and judge questioning the power of the State and, at last, becoming indifferent to each other again. By examining the corpus according to the conception of Jauss and Hermeneutic studies, taking into consideration the theoretical premises about the war, this thesis will show how the current reader can have an aesthetic experience of pleasure in face of the terror inflicted by the man in the 20th century. Therefore the context of the Holocaust it can be interpreted as a violence more moderate than shown in the mainstream media and in the theories about the war, since the receiver will have a first contact with the First World War by the remarqueano novel.