História, ficção e memória nos espaços fantásticos de A Jangada de Pedra: uma (a)ventura ibérica

Abstract

This research, which focuses on the book A Jangada de Pedra, by José Saramago, intends to show how the fantastic literature contributes to the author relating the History of Portugal and Spain in the fiction told in the novel. In turning the peninsula into a huge stone ship, which drifts across the ocean, the writer focuses the reader\'s attention on the issue of the Iberian landmass, showing aspects related to the past and present of that region. Thus, Saramago not only transformed the historiographical discourse into a literary one, but he also did it in an extreme way: with strange facts which cannot be explained by reason. In this way, drawing on the relationship between space and power, the novel makes reflections about the History, memory and identity of the Iberian people possible. To this aim, the theoretical basis on spacialities will be used from the theories of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. To support the discussions on the fantastic literature, studies by Tzvetan Todorov, Remo Ceserani, Filipe Furtado and Louis Vax will be utilized; to support the relation between History and Literature, studies by Linda Hutcheon and Antonio Esteves will be addressed. With regard to the matters of the collective memory and the identity of the Iberian people, the theories of Maurice Halbwachs, Jacques Le Goff and Eduardo Lourenço will be employed.