THE ARTIFICIAL PARADISES OF DES ESSEINTES, A DECADENT ESTHETE

In the late nineteenth century, the discoveries of the unconscious universe and the fondness for mysterious dimensions of existence have influenced a group of young artists to probe world mysteries through the incantatory power of words. From the opposition to scientific Realism and Naturalism, and also inspired by the revolutionary poetry of Charles Baudelaire, thus arose Decadentism. The novel À Rebours, by the French novelist and art critic Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907), is an important expression of that spirit. In that work, there is a fruitful dialogue between painting and literature, which inaugurates a new style opposing the already exhausted realistic model. Duke Des Esseintes, the eccentric protagonist of the novel, struggles to modernity and emerging bourgeoisie’s unrefined taste of emerging bourgeoisie. In his searching for a new literary model, Huysmans bet on environment descriptions and art transpositions. The painting served as an aesthetic paradigm for the novel construction, not limited only to the frequent descriptions of Moreau or Redon’s paintings, but also encompassing the way Huysmans described the furniture, tapestries, artificial flowers and fishes, book covers etc... Being outstanding was his idea, things beyond the reach for the common man, devoted to trivialities of everyday life. The transposition of art, or the creation of an artistic work by language, acquires immeasurable value to the critical Huysmans engrossing him in À Rebours. There, the critical superimpose the writer. The decadent style of Huysmans opposes the analytical reason. In his work, the art aims to retake the passion, the dream, the mystery, fear, death, totally disengaged of the desire to represent the reality.

Classic and Historical Backlands in Elomar Figueira Mello

The literary-musical production of Elomar Figueira Mello is marked by the ubiquity of the theme of backland. The analysis of the letters of the songs from the album Na quadrada das águas perdidas, disc recorded by Elomar in 1978, allows us to distinguish, in such compositions, three meanings, or three “levels” of backland: a “classic” or “ideal” backland, which is based in Elomar’s conviction of the existence, in a indeterminate past, of an interior territory inhabited by people who guided his actions based on feelings of justice, dignity, honor, nobility and courage; a “historical-geographical hinterland”, that emerges from the references made by the composer to places and characters – singers, drovers, men of the hinterland – of the Sertão da Ressaca, southwest of Bahia region; and, at last, a “deep backland” or “internal backland”, the backland resulting of artistic creation, hinterland that is constructed by the specific aesthetic and poetic work of the composer. This paper seeks to address, in more detailed form, through examination of the letter of song Canto de guerreiro mongoió, the Elomar’s representations of historical and geographical hinterland where the composer is included as an individual and as an artist - the Sertão da Ressaca.

READER’S ROLE AND THE LITERARY GENRE IN TEXTUAL RECEPTION: TZVETAN TODOROV AND VINCENT JOUVE CONTRIBUITIONS

Regarding the importance the reader takes on in studies about reading and literary genres, this paper presents reflections about the reader’s role in the constitution of the literary genres as esthetics conventions which the writer dialogues, as well as, about the literary genres theory issues, important to literary analysis, and allow to an useful understanding, and consequently, the esthetical experience in reading literary texts. This paper focuses particularly, in a reflection about the reading concepts and esthetical conventions of the fantastic genre, from the theoretical assumptions of Tzvetan Torodov and Vincent Jouve. From reflections developed related to reception theories, about the reading processing and the reader’s contribution in the creation of the fantastic genre, was possible propose an approach and establish analogies between the referential from de Todorov and Jouve Both authors recognize the importance of the reader’s role to the literary text completeness and suggest the text to present features and conventions, as textual strategies of stylistic, linguistic and formal order which conduct the reader to the achievement of the text meanings.

IS THERE CREATION IN THE ADAPTATION?

The text reflects on the process of creating and adapting literary works to film. What is the point of view of theorists, writers, screenwriters and filmmakers about these processes? As a case study, analyzes the film Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton