LITERATURA E REPRESENTAÇÃO

OS REGIMES DISCURSIVOS DO SÉCULO XX NOS ROMANCES DE JORGE AMADO

Abstract

The present work proposes an interpretative path for the texts of Jorge Amado's first novelistic phase, based on the notion of literature as representation—a discourse with its own status that refers to other discursive regimes, be they political, economic, social, philosophical, or religious. This discourse cannot be merely a fiction of sociological reflection, but rather a representation that carries symbolic elements, validated by complex systems of truth intersected by social theories, poetic regulations, and cosmological visions. It is a type of fiction that is not only the expression, or even the imitation, of something outside itself, but an innovation of the natural world itself, as it augments it with new elements, thus constructing a new 'reality.'. In our view, there are at least three specific discursive regimes operating within this author's literature. Although diverse, and often conflicting and contradictory, they are articulated by the writer both consciously and unconsciously. These are values present in the construction of characters, in their dialogues, in the creation of the 'Amadian' world, in the symbolic Bahia he builds, in the messianic vision of the certainty of a better future, in the hope of revolution, and in the almost naive idea of the communion of races, creeds, and cultures. Reading the Amadian novels—the objects of this study—reveals an unusual combination of Soviet Social Realism, Freyrian miscegenation, and the poetics of German Romanticism.