The Hypermimetism in the novel O Cheiro do Ralo by Lourenço Mutarelli

• Grant number: 14/04320-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2014
• End date: December 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Brazilian Literature
• Principal Investigator: Rejane Cristina Rocha
• Grantee: Arthur Dias de Souza
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In search of the relation between a literary work and reality, the concept of representation has been considered the most important characteristic of this relation, in which socials and esthetics values are involved, as well as the communication systems of a determined epoch. Having in consideration the Historical Realism of XIX century and the changes that it brings to the concept of representation of reality, this investigation aims to understand the mediation that the concept of mimesis plays in the relation between a literary work and reality. In order to do that, the conception developed by Tânia Pellegrini (2007) that claims that there is a specific posture and specific method that came into existence with Realism, serves as a parameter to understand why some literary works of Brazilian contemporaneity have been classified as neorealists. More specifically, this investigation pays attention to what Alfredo Bosi calls hypermimetism, a typical method of literary expression in mass culture. Hypermimetism is a characteristic of an appeal literature, which is direct and with no mediations, and in which some special effects, within the limits of what written language allows the author to do, dictate the rhythm of lecture in the mass culture. The novel by Lourenço Mutarelli, O Cheiro do Ralo, serves as a basis for an analysis of the specific characteristics of the hypermimetic method, as this method is responsible for a specific posture. The analysis of what Alfredo Bosi (2002) called convention, a way of resisting amid the lack of mediations in the contemporary criticism, helps to understand which are the new ways of representing reality that are related to the hypermimetism.