Ideias novas, desejos esquecidos e busca por magia: a figura da fada na literatura infantil

Abstract

Fairies are part of the imagination of many peoples and cultures, differentiated by names, shapes, colors, powers and, together with witches, wizards, gnomes, goblins, among other beings endowed with magic, they are present in numerous folk tales. This fantastic creature has a close relationship to Celtic mythology. Being the folklore of the Celtic peoples in its essence from the oral tradition, the fairy presents itself in constant metamorphoses, so to fix a single physical form in relation to it is a complicated task. The figure of this character is depicted throughout the stories of oral tradition and classic fairy tales in multiple ways, whose nature manifests itself in an ambiguous and strange, but a common resemblance seems to unite most of them within these various narratives: its representation as a helping character to some other character, usually the protagonist. There is also an essential attribute that defines all fairies: magic. This work intends to present a study about the representation of fairies, from the celtic stories, going through the fairy tales known by Perrault, Grimm, Andersen and of female authorship, to the characters of modern children's literature. It is pertinent to point out that a selection of narrative choices was made so that this trajectory could be made. In the last chapter of this work, a reading of the fairy figure will be performed in Brazilian children's literature, and at this moment, three works will be analyzed more specifically: A fada que tinha ideias (1971), by the writer Fernanda Lopes de Almeida; A casa da madrinha (1978), by Lygia Bojunga; and Onde tem bruxa tem fada (1979) by the writer Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós.