The pathological unreasonable: O Guesa, the history and criticism of time
O Guesa. Sousândrade. History. Time experience. Criticism.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the elaboration of the experience of time in the poem O Guesa for the constitution of meaning in the history of America and Brazil. The strategy used consists in the analysis of the linguistic resources used in the construction of the poem's temporal textures and of the relationship they assume in the composition of the epic plot. In order to understand this narrative investment, the research follows the existential and transcontinental journey of the character Guesa through the twelve chants of the epic, where, mixed with the voice of the epic narrator, the pilgrim make critical assessments about the achievements of modernity and the Iberian colonization in the Americas, as well as regarding the Brazil’s Second Reign. Despite the preponderant role of these criticisms in the epic plot, the initial hypothesis of this thesis is that the epic O Guesa is not limited to these denunciations, its two descents into hell consisting of a combinatorial art that opens up a vast dramaturgical field from which it becomes possible to think of other configurations and representations for the history of Brazil and America.