Espirais de desejos: as relações de afeto na literatura brasileira

Abstract

The history of literature is marked by themes that are related to human experiences, providing a written version of the society in which the writers are inserted. From such experiences, interpersonal relationships and the ways they were shaped in fiction call our attention, particularly those that escape the monogamous pattern, constituting the so-called love triangles. Although triangular relations outstand in literary historiography, other geometric figures are possible, leading us to the spiral as a model for figuring relationships and affections between characters. This study aims at presenting the geometric figure of the spiral as a metaphor for representing relations of desire and of subjectivity construction of fictional subjects in Brazilian literature, from relationships that, when established in fiction, do not adjust to monogamy, allowing the visualization of spiraled relationships. The analyzed texts are inserted both in works that traditionally support the basis of this literature, as well as in works that, for various reasons, have been silenced, along the path that national creative writing has taken. Therefore, we observe literary affective relationships raging from productions of the chroniclers of the discovery, such as those by Jean de Léry, with his Viagem à terra do Brasil (1961), inserted in Quinhentismo, to the work Amora (2015), by Natália Borges Polesso, inserted in contemporary production. Throughout the research, we sought to trace a historical-literary panorama, from relations between fictional characters considering their subjectivities for the construction of relationships that scape the monogamous patterns. The theoretical background was based, mainly, on the following perspectives: a) discussion about literary criticism regarding the constitution of a canon, as well as the criticism of some works that have already been widely debated, due to the status that they have taken, such as Abreu (2006), Candido (2000), Compagnon (2003), Jakobson (2002), as with on theoretical discussions that support the readings of literary production that addresses same-sex relationships, such as Sedgwick (1998/2007); Silva (2011); Swain (1999); Trevisan (2011), among others; b) tenets of fields of study that address the desire to understand the relationships established by the characters, such as Albuquerque Júnior (2014), Chauí (1990), Koury (2009), Spinoza (2009); c) studies related to the concept of the spiral, through Euclidean Geometry and Sacred Geometry, such as theorists as Boyer (1994), Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1986), Dolce and Pompeo (1993), Euclides (2009), Pennick (1980), among other authors. In view of the research findings, we were able to prove that the spirals are geometric figures that visually metaphorize the relations of desire represented in literary fiction.