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The Netherlands - 2009 PDF

333 Pages·2009·1.25 MB·English
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On the Nature of the [Portuguese] Short Story: A Poetics of Intimacy. Over het Wezen van het [Portugese] Kortverhaal: een Poëtica van de Intimiteit. (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. J.C. Stoof, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 15 januari 2010 des middags te 2.30 uur door Erik Adolf Van Achter geboren op 19 juli 1963 te Wetteren, België Promotor: Prof.dr. P. de Medeiros Co-promotor: Prof.dr. O. de Almeida Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my father (†) and my brother (†) who would have been proud of me and to my mother, for bearing the brunt of my growing Latino character. It is also dedicated to those once so close and now so far away, but always on my mind: Cazé Silva (Brasilia, Brazil), Paola Rolletta (Maputo, Mozambique), José Luís Landeira (São Paulo, Brazil)) and to Tim Fagundes (San Diego, USA) serving the United States Army somewhere in the world. It is dedicated to all those who have taught Portuguese in the Low Countries, especially Prof. Dr. Roegiest (University of Ghent, Flanders—Belgium) and Prof Dr. Venâncio (University of Amsterdam—the Netherlands) Table of Contents Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................................i Preface........................................................................................................................................v 0. Introduction........................................................................................................................1 Chapter I. Generic Labels for Short Prose Fiction.....................................................................4 1.0. Introduction.................................................................................................................4 1.1. A New Label in Literary Criticism.............................................................................5 1.2. Portugal.....................................................................................................................12 1.3. Label stretching.........................................................................................................14 1.4. História – Conto – Novella.......................................................................................16 1.5. Romance – Novella – Conto......................................................................................18 1.6. Golden Years.............................................................................................................22 1.7. Conclusion.................................................................................................................29 Chapter II. The Rise of the Conto Literário, moderno in Nineteenth Century Portugal.........32 2.0. Introduction...............................................................................................................32 2.1. Folhetim Crónica – Folhetim Conto.........................................................................37 2.2. The Romantic Short Story.........................................................................................39 2.3. O Conto de Terror.....................................................................................................43 2.4. O Conto Rústico........................................................................................................44 2.6. From History to Theory.............................................................................................61 2.7. Conclusion.................................................................................................................79 Chapter III. The Genesis of a Paradigm in Short Story Studies...............................................82 3.0. Introduction...............................................................................................................82 3.1. E. A. Poe and the Tale Proper...................................................................................84 3.2. Brander Matthews and the Short-story......................................................................89 3.3. The Anonymous Review...........................................................................................96 3.4. The Effects of Poe’s and Matthews’ Essays.............................................................98 3.5. Conclusion: Long Term Effects..............................................................................104 Chapter IV. Trends in Modern Short Story Criticism: an Overview.....................................110 4.0. Introduction.............................................................................................................110 4.2. The Analogy to Poetry............................................................................................112 4.3. The Short Story -Novel Distinction........................................................................114 4.4. Ferguson vs. May....................................................................................................132 4.5. Is there a Reader in /for the Short Story?................................................................138 4.6. The Splintering Frame: beyond Genre....................................................................163 4.7. Conclusion...............................................................................................................171 Chapter V. The Portuguese Short Story as a Genre...............................................................174 5.0. Introduction: Genre, Mode and Sub-genre..............................................................174 5.1. The Corpus and a Methodological Approach.........................................................181 5.2. The Corpus Analysed..............................................................................................190 5.2.1. “Realist” Short Stories.........................................................................................190 5.3.2. Short Stories: The Period of Second Modernism.................................................209 5.3.3. Short Stories from the Magazine: Ficções...........................................................220 5.3.4. Conclusion............................................................................................................229 5.4. From Discourse Description towards the Concept of Genre...................................237 5.4.1. Narrators and their Space.....................................................................................237 5.4.2. Narrated Time in the Portuguese Short Story......................................................246 5.4.3. Characters: Larger than Life, less than Real........................................................250 5.5. Conclusion...............................................................................................................263 VI. Final Conclusion..............................................................................................................266 Samenvatting in het Nederlands.............................................................................................272 Works Cited............................................................................................................................275 2.1. Portuguese Short Story Criticism and Literary History..........................................277 2.2. American and General Short Story Criticism.........................................................282 2.3. German Short Story Criticism.................................................................................290 2.4. Literary History, Theory and Criticism...................................................................291 Appendix I. A German Lesson in Genre Description............................................................296 Appendix II. Counter Analysis: four Neo-Realist Fictions....................................................316 Acknowledgements. In the first place I would like to thank Professor Dr. Paulo de Medeiros for having given me the opportunity to write and defend a PhD at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands), and for having gone with me this far. The venture was not an obvious one, as the subject matter is extremely volatile, and the first long and difficult years passed by quickly without clear results. Someone who has accompanied me too for this very long stretch of time, and from whom I had my first real introduction in Portuguese Literature, is Professor Dr. Seabra Pereira (University of Coimbra). When in Portugal he assumed the function of a real co-promotor. It was after the examination of Portuguese Literature at the University of Coimbra, he proposed to write about narrativa breve. When the laborious writing process started, a stitching together of so many different partial theories and pieces of criticism, Professor Dr. Onésimo de Almeida of Brown University (U.S.A.) was my first serious critical reader. I am convinced that the manuscript benefited immensely from his expertise and being a short fiction writer himself, the meetings were always a stimulus which should not be underestimated. The last to enter the scene was Professor Dr. Rosa Goulart of the University of the Azores. Besides having written a curiously fresh piece of criticism on the nature of the Portuguese short story, she is an expert in literary analysis and in narratology. Her interest in my first analyses of some thirty Portuguese short stories meant the final “go for it.” In the first years my endeavour to write a PhD on the short story at my home base—an Institute of Technology—received only a lukewarm reception. Many did not believe I would ever make it. In retrospect, I must honestly confess that I myself probably belonged to that group of sceptics. The rather inhospitable atmosphere towards a PhD in the field of Letters slightly changed with the full implementation of the Bologna Treaty. I would like to thank i here the former director, Luc Haerens and his wife—both lovers of Portuguese culture and currently even living in Portugal—and the present director Professor Dr. F. Baert, who, as man of letters, showed quite some appreciation. I, however, would especially like to thank the head of the Department of Industrial Engineering, Luc Van Hooymissen, without whose unremitting enthusiasm this manuscript would not lie here before you and the Dean of the faculty-to-be, Dr. Chris Van Keer, who in spite of continuous resistance, is zealously promoting research at KaHo Sint-Lieven. Besides the full support of the professors involved and the few mentioned at KaHo Sint-Lieven, I could also rely on interested scholars in Portugal, Spain and the United States. In the first place, I like to thank Professor Dr. Manuel Ferreira of the University of Aveiro (Portugal) for inviting me to lecture and for gently giving me the space to publish. Professor Dr. Viorica Patea from the University of Salamanca (Spain) for her interesting and in-depth conversations on the nature of the short story on the occasion of the Salamanca Congress (2004) and the Lisbon Congress (2006) on the Short Story. On the Lisbon Congress I also met Professor Dr. George Monteiro, Brown University (U.S.A.), who gave me quite a few “encouraging” remarks. The two congresses meant a real breakthrough for this dissertation. At the University of Lisbon, I found my earliest supporters for the present essay in the Department of English and American Literature: Professor Dr. Maria Luísa Flora and Professor Dr. Teresa Cid. In the corridors of the Biblioteca Nacional, Professor Dr. Ernesto Rodrigues (University of Lisbon) was always there to take away any doubt and to suggest new possible lines of thought concerning nineteenth century Portuguese literature. One of the most exciting events was meeting Professor Dr. Charles May (University of California) and Professor Dr. Susan Lohafer (University of Iowa). After having read their articles for almost two decades, finally having an opportunity to discuss live particular topics of short story theory meant a boost for this essay at a rather early stage in the writing process. ii I have been in many places over the past fifteen years, but one place has captured my imagination from the very first day. The city of Coimbra with its old university towering over the Mondego River is indeed a place of many enchantments, difficult to explain to those who have not lived through the unique experience of being a student there. The Faculty of Letters, more than my own institute in Ghent (Flanders, Belgium), has been my real home for the past decade. I like to thank, once again, Professor Dr. Seabra Pereira for the friendship and all the members of the Research Group for Portuguese literature I am now a proud member of. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Dr. Maria João Simões and Professor Dr. Helena Santana with whom I share a passion for Portuguese nineteenth century literature. I would also like to thank Professor Dr. Cristina de Mello for teaching me quite a few things about mode and genre, crucial concepts in this dissertation. Professor Dr. Ana Paula Arnaut I thank for kindly inviting me for guest lectures in the Master course. The administrative staffs of the ILLP and the central and general library, I like to thank for their help (with great competence) and for the interest in the work I was doing. I would finally like to mention the extra-ordinary help I received from Juliana Opitz (Coimbra) when editing the manuscript. Without her help I would never have survived the “batalha com as gralhas.” The full rhetorical weight of the last lines in this word of thanks I have reserved for those real friends who behind the scenes are always there and never fail even if—I have to admit—I sometimes do: Paulo Nicolau Duarte and Marco Cruz Alves (Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal), Jorge Gregório (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal), Rowan Tepper (Binghamton University, New York, U.S.A.), Jim Bradley (University of Illinois at Chicago, U.S.A.) and, last but not least, António João Gomes Monteiro. I like to thank my colleague Bart de Winter (French and Spanish) and my friends Geert De Kerpel, Bart Christiaen and Serge De Vinck for their (many) visit(s) to either Coimbra or Lisbon. Especially in the first years when it was difficult to grasp the full iii complexity of the phenomenon “short story theory,” their presence meant a lot to me. Today, I am still grateful that they were there for me, even though they had other obligations as to work and family. Finally, I must thank two very special people: Mr. Jos Vaesen (Director of Academic Personnel of the K.U.Leuven) and Wilfried Van Wittenberghe (Head of the Department— Ghent) for a friendship of almost twenty-five years. I especially would like to express my most sincere gratitude to both for having accepted to stand by me on the day of the defence. It is—I believe—a great honour when public support comes from the people one privately admires. Erik Van Achter, Santa Cruz de Coimbra – 25 July 2009. iv Preface. I have been an avid reader of short fiction since secondary school. I still remember how I was struck by the curious atmosphere in a short story we had to read for general culture as part of the programme Dutch, Mother Tongue. The fiction was Brazilian, the writer Guimarães Rosa and the translation was—as I know now very well—a magnificent one, by no one less than August Willemsen.* Little did I then know that one day I would write about the short story in Portuguese, be it not based on Brazilian stories. The curious estrangement I had felt after reading many a short story kept me wondering at the why of the unease after the reading process. In the eighties on a trip to London, in one of the many second hand bookstores, I picked up a copy of Charles May’s Short Story Theories, a collection of essays written in the seventies. It was the beginning of my theoretical reflection on the genre and a start to read more and better. I soon found out that my discovery was already a poetics of the short story in itself. For a long time indeed, the short story has been considered as second hand (compared to the novel) and its criticism comes like the genre itself: in collections. When I decided to study Portuguese in the nineties, I was struck by the singularity of the short story in Portuguese. None, or few, of the American theory I had studied, seemed to be really applicable although the few Portuguese theorists I knew, seemed to be intriguingly familiar with American short story theory. The present dissertation is the result of a long process of questioning the short story and aims at uniting the reading experience acquired over the years in both theory (American) and practice (Portuguese). It is also the result of an obsession I share with American scholars in the field, namely to define the genre. * It was a translation of the stories Primeiras Estórias which had been published in the Netherlandic under the title De Derde Oever van de Rivier in a Meulenhoff Edition in 1977, translated by August Willemsen with a postscript by the translator. v

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Chapter V. The Portuguese Short Story as a Genre whom I had my first real introduction in Portuguese Literature, is Professor Dr. Seabra adultery other themes like usury, careers rapidly built and destroyed, haute finance,.
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