Method and inventio: dialogues between literature and history in José Saramago´s All The Names book

Abstract

Writing about a literary work is a complex effort because it involves interpreting the meanings of a creative narrative. Writing about the potentialities that history can learn about methodology from literary practice is even more complex, once it requires an effort to release some established standards about the roles of history and literature as distinct fields. In this way, this article discusses, from the literary work All the Names of José Saramago, the possibility that literature offers to the history field not only in the building of verisimilitude but, overall, how it can point out ways for the investigation buildings and research procedures, from its own inventive writing.