Maria Izabel Velazquez Domingues

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Maria Izabel Velazquez Domingues MARIA IZABEL VELAZQUEZ DOMINGUES ALASDAIR GRAY’S LANARK IN THE SCOTTISH CONTEMPORARY SCENE: A MATTER OF POSTMODERN IDENTITY PORTO ALEGRE 2010 Livros Grátis http://www.livrosgratis.com.br Milhares de livros grátis para download. UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL INSTITUTO DE LETRAS CURSO DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS ÁREA DE ESTUDOS DA LITERATURA LINHA DE PESQUISA: LITERATURA, IMAGINÁRIO E HISTÓRIA ALASDAIR GRAY’S LANARK IN THE SCOTTISH CONTEMPORARY SCENE: a matter of postmodern identity Tese de Doutorado submetida à Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul como requisito parcial para obtenção do título de Doutor em Letras. Doutoranda: Maria Izabel Velazquez Domingues Orientadora: Professora Dra. Sandra Sirangelo Maggio Porto Alegre Maio 2010 FICHA CATALOGRÁFICA DOMINGUES, Maria Izabel Velazquez Alasdair Gray’s Lanark in the Scottish Contemporary Scene: a Matter of Postmodern Identity Maria Izabel Velazquez Domingues. Porto Alegre: UFRGS, Instituto de Letras, 2010. 185 p. Tese (Doutorado - Curso de Pós-graduação em Letras) Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. 1. Literatura Escocesa. 2. Crítica Literária. 3. Alasdair Gray. 4. Lanark. 5. Pós-modernismo. 6. Estudos Culturais. Fig. 1 Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation Alasdair Gray, 2002 Fig. 2 Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind Rudyard Kipling, Speech, 1923 Lanark’s Launching Poster, 1981 Fig. 3 AGRADECIMENTOS À CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento Pessoal do Ensino Superior), pela Bolsa de Doutorado. Ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Aos meus pais e irmãs, pelo incentivo, torcida e paciência. À minha Orientadora Dra. Sandra Sirangelo Maggio, pela amizade, confiança, carinho e ensinamentos transmitidos ao longo dos anos de Mestrado e Doutorado que levarei por toda minha vida. Ao Alasdair Gray e sua esposa Morag McAlpine, pela autorização de uso das imagens do website e dos livros. À Professora Dra. Márcia Ivana de Lima e Silva, que já contribuiu muito para minhas Bancas de Seleção e Qualificação de Doutorado, e que novamente me dá a honra de apreciar meu trabalho. Às Professoras Dras. Helenita Franco Rosa e Simone Silva de Assumpção por aceitarem enriquecer esta tese com suas valiosas leituras. Ao Prof. Dr. Eduardo Marks de Marques, por seu trabalho de Conclusão de Curso de Graduação sobre autores escoceses que tanto me inspirou e por participar de minha Qualificação com suas sugestões. Aos meus familiares e amigos. Aos amigos Nando e Lawrence, pelos livros, DVDs, recortes e convites para Londres. Aos meus colegas do Pós, com quem aprendi muito. Aos meus colegas e alunos do Colégio de Aplicação da UFRGS e da FAPA. Aos funcionários da secretaria da Pós-Graduação em Letras da UFRGS. Aos funcionários da Biblioteca Setorial de Ciências Sociais e Humanidades da UFRGS. In Memoriam Professor Dr. Dietrich Scheunemann (*-------†2006), University of Edinburgh, que acreditou no meu trabalho e me incentivou a explorar a Literatura Escocesa. RESUMO Esta é uma leitura crítica de Lanark: a Life in Four Books do escritor escocês Alasdair Gray (1934), cujos talento e estilo se constituem exemplo da literatura contemporânea da Escócia. Esta investigação tem por objetivo determinar o papel exercido pela produção do autor nas esferas literária, cultural e sociopolítica da Escócia de hoje. Ao transitar entre ficção e meta-ficção, arte e autobiografia, Gray encara os paradoxos envolvidos ao tentar revitalizar traços da identidade nacional. O trabalho de Gray não pode ser considerado sem o reconhecimento de que a sua literatura é, simultaneamente, local e universal. Ela pertence ao cosmos escocês o qual é destacado por lutas culturais assim como é também dominante por ser escrita em Inglês e, com isso, alcançar leitores de todas as partes do mundo dentro das fronteiras transpostas pela Língua Inglesa. Essa é uma das razões pelas quais esta pesquisa busca lançar luz sobre a cena literária contemporânea escocesa, empenhando-se em preencher uma lacuna existente no currículo acadêmico brasileiro de nossos cursos de graduação e pós-graduação no que tange o tratamento e a abordagem das outras Literaturas produzidas em Língua Inglesa. Para tanto, a tese está dividida em três partes. A primeira considera a literatura escocesa em relação à formação, ratificação e reavaliação do significado de senso de identidade nacional, como observado diacronicamente através do período entre 1940 e 1970. A segunda parte focaliza os novos olhares no cenário cultural da Escócia por um grupo de escritores repleto de estilo, história e visão, os New Scottish Writers. As estratégias de Gray para lidar com ficção e biografia em Lanark assim como sua reflexão sobre a natureza do mundo são de grande importância para este trabalho. Com embasamento teórico no entendimento de Linda Hutcheon sobre meta-ficção historiográfica, intertextualidade, parodia e ironia no pós- modernismo, eu tento enquadrar, no Capitulo Três, as manobra literárias desempenhadas pelo autor ao usar tais recursos textuais no romance. Espero que o resultado desta tese de doutorado possa ser útil como reflexão sobre o presente estado de discussões sobre a literatura Escocesa pós-moderna e, ao mesmo tempo, como um meio de tornar os leitores acadêmicos brasileiros mais familiarizados com a obra de Alasdair Gray. Palavras-Chave: Literatura Escocesa, Alasdair Gray, Lanark, Pós-Modernismo, Crítica Literária, Estudos Culturais. ABSTRACT This is a critical reading of Lanark: a Life in Four Books, a novel by the Scottish writer Alasdair Gray (b. 1934), whose talent and style provide a fitting example of Scotland’s contemporary literature. The aim of this investigation is to determine the role played by Gray’s production in the literary, cultural and sociopolitical spheres of present-day Scottish life. In his blending of fiction and metafiction, of art and autobiography, the author faces the paradoxes involved in the attempt to stress the marks of a national identity. Gray’s work cannot be considered without recognizing that his literature is both local and universal. It belongs to the Scottish cosmos which is highlighted by cultural struggles as well as it is dominant, once it is carried out in the English Language reaching readers all over the world from within the limits and format determined by the English Language. That is one of the reasons why this research aims to shed light on the current Scottish literary scene, attempting to fill an existing gap in the Brazilian academic curriculum respecting the treatment and approach of Literatures produced in English in our undergraduate and graduate courses. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first contextualizes Gray in Scotland’s literature in its relation to the formation, ratification and revaluation of the concept of a sense of national identity as observed diachronically, throughout the period between 1940s and 1970s. The second section focuses on the new looks at Scotland’s cultural scenario by a distinguished group of writers burst with style, history and post-devolution vision, the New Scottish Writers. Gray’s strategies to deal with a fictional and biographical context in Lanark and his reflection upon world’s nature and worth are of great importance for this work. By the reading of Linda Hutcheon’s understanding on historiographic metafiction, intertextuality, parody and irony in postmodernism, I attempt to frame in Chapter Three the literary maneuvers Gray makes in using such textual resources in his novel. I hope that the result of this doctoral thesis may be useful both as a reflection upon the present state of the discussion about Scotland’s postmodern literature, and as a means of making the Brazilian academic readers more familiar with the work of Alasdair Gray. KEYWORDS: Scottish Literature, Alasdair Gray, Lanark, Postmodernism, Literary Criticism, Cultural Studies. TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 – Flower by Alasdair Gray (www.bloomsbury.com)...........................................03 Figure 2 – Cat by Alasdair Gray (www.alasdairgray.co.uk).............................................04 Figure 3 – Lanark ’s Launching Poster (www.alasdairgray.co.uk)....................................05 Figure 4 – Skull by Alasdair Gray (www.alasdairgray.co.uk)...........................................12 Figure 5 – Frame (www.alasdairgray.co.uk)..................................................14,18,104,106 Figure 6 – The Opening of the Scottish Parliament (www.bbc.co.uk)..............................25 Figure 7 – Poets’ Pub (www.bbc.co.uk)..........................................................................28 Figure 8 – Alasdair Gray’s Self-Portrait (alasdairgray.blogspot.com)………………………65 Figure 9 – Alasdair Gray Double Self-Portrait (www.sorchadallas.com)..........................76 Figure 10 – Eden and After (1966) by Alasdair Gray (In: MOORES, Phil. Alasdair Gray : critical appreciations and a bibliography. London: The British Library, 2002.)…………….85 Figure 11 – The Pit of Disease : the Falsifiers (1824-7) by William Blake (TOWNSEND, J.H. William Blake : the painter at work. London: Tate Publishing, 2003.)…………………91 Figure 12 – From an Eastern Empire by Alasdair Gray (www.alasdairgray.co.uk)..........107 TABLE OF CONTENTS Fig. 4 Introduction........................................................................................................ 14 1 Contextualizing Alasdair Gray in Scotland’s Literature 1.1 The Sociopolitical Panorama in the 1940s-1970s…………………………........ 20 1.2 On Identity
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