Da queda à ascenção, uma paródia cômica do mito da criação: o imaginário medieval representado no conto do mercador de Geoffrey Chaucer

Abstract

The medieval popular imaginary is composed by symbols which refer to three main edifications: the castle, the cathedral and the enclosure. In this dissertation, we proposed a hermeneutical and analytical discussion of the elements that comprise the popular imaginary of the Low Middle Age (characters, myths and a narrative genre) present in the Merchant‘s Tale, complemented by several aspects of the general prologue of the Canterbury Tales, by the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer, as an attempt to demonstrate how these, mainly the laughter – for its cathartic importance and that of purification in face of mundane and spiritual pleasures – interact and constitute the medieval imaginary in the epoch the oeuvre was written. In contrast, we highlighted medieval man‘s suffering and anguish in relation to the control that the Catholic Church and State had over him. As a theoretical basis for this research, we went through Mikhail Bakhtin‘s (2013) theory of laughter and popular culture in the Middle Age and Renaissance; studies on the anthropological structures of imaginary, by Gilbert Durand (1997), to have a deep understanding of the symbolic images present in the book, as well as his methodological to identify and analyze the director myth, in which the narrative is based (DURAND, 1982); bibliographical revisions on the medieval context (BASCHET, 2006; LE GOFF, 2011; 2014b), and the theory about the medieval imaginary (LE GOFF, 2011) and its philosophy (STORCK, 2013). As results, we dedicated to laughter the value of central element of the medieval imaginary, since characters, narratives and genres have taken after, as representation of the cathartic freedom of people‘s feelings in opposition to the control and power executed by the Catholic Church and State. As for Literature, the oeuvre has influenced the literary production, mainly the oral ones, transmitted through cordel literature and has inspired the invention of characters, such as the cangaceiros and cowboys.