Irony and parody

A critical view of the narrator in História do cerco de Lisboa

Abstract

This paper is a study about História do cerco de Lisboa (2011) by José Saramago. The aim is to stabelish relations between the literary work and the theory of irony and parody. We have sought, for, to spotlight aspects of these categories into the composition of the narrative considerating the critical hole of the narrator in the rebuilding of the historiographical happenings. From the consideration of this novel as a historiographical metafiction, we have noticed that, as through the irony mobilization as much as through the parody, it is has built into the narrative a critical saying created from the fiction in opposition to a crystallised historical speech considerated as the only one and absolute, the History of Tradition. We have supported on several studies which treat about the irony and the parody in the contemporary historical novel, developing our reading from the method of the textual criticism through a bibliographical research with an interpretative slant. As theoretical basis, we have relied on, among others, the ideas by Hutcheon (1989, 1991), Marinho (1999), Brandão (1945) and Calbucci (1999). Thereby, we have elucidated some aspects what show how the contemporary historical novel História do cerco de Lisboa (2011) does its rereading about the History.