Literature-history-memory prism in Ferreira Gullar

A transdisciplinary analysis of Rabo de foguete

Abstract

Rabo de foguete [Rocket’s tail] is an autobiographical book by the poet Ferreira Gullar (2008), which can be read from different perspectives. The aim of this article was a transdisciplinary analysis of the work, which is understood as an object of interest both in literary studies and in the discipline of history. Thus, based on a theoretical framework that links literature, history and politics, a multidisciplinary literary analysis was carried out through the prism of literature-history-memory. To this end, Walter Benjamin's “Sobre o conceito de história” [On the Concept of History] (1993) was used as a basic theoretical framework to discuss the relationship between the disciplines covered and the relationship between individual memory and institutional history. In addition, important authors for the proposed disciplinary articulation were used to mediate this dialog between theory and literature, such as Philippe Lejeune in O pacto autobiográfico [The Autobiographical Pact] (2008). After identifying the ways in which these different fields of knowledge articulate and their relevant concepts, as well as the importance of not forgetting the past in order to know how to act in the present, a literary interpretation of Gullar's book was proposed. The analysis undertaken was concerned with both formal and content aspects of the work, using the transdisciplinary prism presented and discussed in its initial sections as a guiding thread.