LINEARIDADE E FRAGMENTAÇÃO NO ROMANCE

Abstract

This thesis, a study of the evolution of the novel, reflects on the changes that literary narrative underwent over time, until it reached more evolved forms of writing. In traditional narrative the theme, space, time and characters were externally developed and the plot was linear. The models were pre-established, inspired by Walter Scott's narratives and by various historical novels which had been developing in Europe. But the different changes in the behavior of the post-Industrial Revolutionary urban man influenced the manner of writing novels. So, in order to show a little of the process of change in the way narratives were written, this study uses José de Alencar’s O Guarani and James F. Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, both historical narratives which provide a little of the early demonstrations of the genre, in an artistic setting with idealized characters and linearity of events, where the narrator is omniscient. James Joyce’s Ulysses was also used to show some aspects of the evolution of novelistic narrative, in which the artist developed a story which completely abandons the moulds pre-defined by the early idealized, romantic phase. Written in the interwar period, Ulysses focuses on the strains and uncertainties of modern life. In the pages of his book, Joyce presents the daily life of the citizens of contemporary Dublin, breaks with linearity and uses innovative techniques to show that time is far more complex than one could imagine. Theorists of the novel, such as Rosenthal (1974), Rosenfeld (1969), Humphrey (1976), D'Onofrio (1982), served as a basis for this study.