Espreitando os bastidores

: a metaficção em Carola Saavedra, Rui Macedo e António Lobo Antunes

Abstract

The present doctoral research aims to contemplate, in compared perspective, metafiction on current artistic experiments in Brazil and Portugal. It is considered a metafictional work those which highlight and emphasize the artificiality of its own constructions, unmasking themselves to the reader and inciting the illusion of the supposed spontaneity of the artistic creation. By way of the bibliographic corpus of the present research, it is aimed to auscultate the contemporary breath of the metafictional resource which, hallowed during modernism, is frequently present on recent literary and artistic works from different nationalities. Among a number of self-referential expressions, three voices were selected which present the metafictional issue in an unique and authentic manner. The selected corpus considers the novel O inventário das coisas ausentes (2014) by the Brazilian writer Carola Saavedra, the pictorial exhibition In Situ: Carta de Intenções (2014) by the Portuguese plastic artist Rui Macedo and a collection of chronicles by the Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes (Livro de crónicas, 1998, Segundo livro de crónicas, 2002, Terceiro livro de crónicas, 2006, Quarto livro de crónicas, 2011 and Quinto livro de crónicas, 2013). The introductory first section indicates the work’s objectives and assumptions that are exposed and which guide the doctoral thesis construction and briefly refers to the theoretical discussion regarding metafiction. In terms of the structure, the thesis examines three major aspects in each artistic production selected: the first one relates to the observation of the ways in which the metafictional approach produces an impression of a forged spontaneity; the second aspect is a contemplation regarding the reader’s pact (in which ways the selected works affect the relation established between artist, work and public); and the third one is an analysis on how the chosen corpus proposes a return to the origin(s). Considering the three aspects outlined above as guidelines to the writing, it is intended to investigate how the artistic works react to this interrogations. An assumption is proposed concerning the fact that the compared examination of the singular metafictional features employed on these works provide valuable elements to think about the contemporary metafictional statute in general and also in the particular Portuguese and Brazilian contexts focused herein.

Date of Award	26 Mar 2018
Original language	Portuguese
Supervisor	Helena Franco Martins (Supervisor) & Jorge Fazenda Lourenço (Supervisor)