João Guimarães Rosa, “irrational autobiography” and literary criticism: veredas of oraliture

Abstract

Guimarães Rosa classifies his novel Grande sertão: veredas as an “irrational autobiography” – while this explicit reading protocol falls on deaf ears as far as scholars and critics are concerned. Riobard, its main character, is a poet that makes a Faustian deal in order to prevail over Hermogene (the Saussurian arbitrary sign) and, consequently, to “receive” Otacilia as an award (a literary one: “prêmio esse”, says the hero): the loss of Diadorim (the soul: “deo-doron” means “a gift of god”) is the price to pay for his achievements. Meanwhile, Guimarães Rosa declares that he usually writes under a “possession trance state”, postpones four years along his entrance into the Brazilian Academy of Letters, and finally dies mysteriously three days after the ceremony. An enigma or just another poetic puzzle? Why the critics avoid these reading clues? By the means of factual indexes and through a freshly invented way in the world history of literature, the novelist lays the details of his own non-printable autobiography – a text to be actualized under the exclusive shape of oraliture – attempting to transform into a living legend his own life and evade himself from the finite condition of human beings (as well as from the limited nature of printed texts).