Beauty itself must die! An investigation into the origins of tiredness in the novel

• Grant number: 21/06209-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2023
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Akcelrud Durão
• Grantee: Gleydson André da Silva Ferreira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/14232-2 - Beauty itself must die! An investigation into the origins of tiredness in the novel, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

In this project, tiredness is used to discuss a paradigm shift, whose manifestations can be seen in the figurative weakening of the entrepreneurial protagonist. It aims to demonstrate how the impulse to conquer the world, often thematized in Realism, is replaced by a regression of desire, which becomes recurrent in Modernism, notably in the modern novel. To this end, we propose, initially, a review of the European socio-historical context at the end of the 19th century, a time when, at least at first glance, the bourgeois ideology of economic ascension was proclaimed; as well as a study of the beginning of the 20th century, a period marked by the First World War. A theoretical discussion on the decline of agency is then attempted, establishing Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and The Sentimental Education as non-temporal landmarks. Finally, a more detailed exercise in literary criticism is aimed at analyzing William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Juan Carlos Onetti's The Brief Life based on the hypothesis of tiredness in the novel.