The fantastic in Erico Verissimo: analysis of the short story “Sonata”

Based on the fantastic narrative, this paper aims to present an analysis of the short story “Sonata”, from Erico Verissimo, which is part of his work Fantoches e outros contos, originally published in 1932. This is the first book published by this author, the only one of his own composed just by short stories. For the purpose of this paper, first of all, it is clarified the concept of fantastic narrative, according to the understanding of some authors – as Todorov (1979), Rodrigues (1988) and Calvino (2004) –, and, furthermore, it is briefly discussed the concepts of strange and marvelous, which contributes to the definition of fantastic. It is also mentioned aspects related to the emergence of fantastic and the reasons of its existence. To verify this element in the narrative, it is required a strange or supernatural event and, also, the hesitation of the reader and of a character. Besides, this kind of narrative involves a certain way of interpretation – the way that the reader faces the events presented by the story contributes to support the fantastic. After these considerations, it is presented a thorough analysis of the short story “Sonata”, which has music as a guide and presents the point of view of its main character, who is not named. That is the story of a young piano teacher that, in the context of World War II, moved by the desire of escaping from reality, gets immerse in old newspapers. In his reading, he finds out an ad from 1912, the year he was born, which requests the services of a piano teacher. From that moment on, a journey to the past starts, and, then, it is possible to verify the presence of several elements that point to the fantastic and allow the reader to experience the hesitation, such as the theory here in use indicates.

Oedipos hermeneut – the poetic-ontological dimension of the tragedy

This work intends to dialogue with questions of Oedipus, the mythical character, brought about by Sophocles tragic drama. In his reflective journey in search of his being, especially in the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus investigates its own path to death. We propose reflect the death as a condition of possibility for the emergence of Oedipus as from his own ruins. Thus, our assumption is that the uncovering Oedipus' truth culminate at the end of the play, with the death of one of his personas, one of the selves of character. The issue of the interpretation therefore is crucial, and it leads to the title of this work. Therefore Oedipus is a hermeneut in the extent that he interprets the enigma that structures his own mythical history.