Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação aproxima as narrativas curtas de The Age of the Rainmakers, do escritor guianense Wilson Harris (1971), com referências de textualidades indígenas presentes em literaturas de viagens ou antropológica, muitas vezes mencionadas pelo escritor. Para situar tal leitura, é feito um mapeamento da história da literatura da Guiana e o lugar específico que esta tradição ocupa, como único país caribenho, de língua inglesa, no continente sul-americano. Conformando o espaço literário das Guianas, em que a floresta e seus povos tradicionais exercem forte influência estética e filosófica, tal literatura apresenta, além do caráter transformacional das mitologias ameríndias, uma estreita relação entre meio-ambiente e linguagem. Tal é o lugar de encontro de diferentes culturas que, criativamente, sugere novas possibilidades conceituais para se pensar a humanidade, como o próprio escritor teoriza, em imaginação cross-cultural.

This thesis engages with Wilson Harris's vision for the Caribbean in light of the processes of land settlement, appropriation, genocide and slave trafficking that have historically denied the region's population of human identity. Concerned primarily with Wilson Harris's first four published novels, Palace of the Peacock (1960), The Far Journey of Oudin (1961), The Whole Armour (1962), and The Secret Ladder (1963), which were then grouped together and republished as The Guyana Quartet (1985), the study of this quartet also focuses on Harris's critical essays, most notably "The Amerindian Legacy" (1990). Firstly, this thesis situates Wilson Harris within the context of postcolonial thought and Caribbean literature in the 20th century. Then, it focuses on the remnants of colonial conquest that appear continuously in Harris's four novels under the repeated motif of pursuit. By exploring the presence of Jungian thought in Harris's fictional writing and critical writing, as well as the immanent ontology of the Caribbean that underpins the author's vision, the thesis draws out Harris's response to the cycle of persecution that he believes to stagnate the Caribbean. Harris's mythopoetic revisioning of Caribbean identity in The Guyana Quartet proposes a form of rebirth that transforms the dialectic between...

Esta dissertação apresenta como a criação de personagens realizada pelo escritor guianense Wilson Harris em The Sleepers of Roraima (1970) ressoa com premissas da ideia de diferença existente em cosmologias ameríndias. Para traçar uma relação entre esses planos, o trabalho foca na corporalidade e na perspectiva, tópicos fundamentais do americanismo tropical, articulando-os aos processos de singularização de personagens narrados na trilogia de novelas de Harris. Destaca-se como modos de individuação de povos nativos da região repercutem com as dinâmicas que compõem os seres ficcionais da obra. Essas dinâmicas, mediadas por aspectos pré-individuais irredutíveis a uma morfologia de personificações fisiologicamente discreta, participam da focalização das novelas, de modo que esta funciona como eixo de proliferação de perspectivas. Assim, o narrador se afasta do princípio de identidade como medida régia da personificação, convergindo com a replicação diferenciante própria de práticas de muitas ontologias ameríndias. O estudo mostra que as personagens analisadas também não são finalizadas por contornos intelectuais ou psicológicos, mas variam relacionalmente à medida que atualizam pontos de vista desdobrados por recursos narrativos como oxímoros e paralelismos. Tais procedimentos textuais dirigem provocações de Harris contra o determinismo mimético do realismo, por meio de linhas de encontro entre dilemáticas barrocas, bricolagens surrealistas e a noção ameríndia de diferença. A partir desta análise literária, a dissertação esboça contribuições para o aprofundamento de uma reciprocidade de perspectivas entre a etnologia americanista, a filosofia da diferença e os estudos literários, considerando possíveis rendimentos dessa simetrização para o questionamento de antípodas modernos tais como natureza/cultura, indivíduo/sociedade e nós/outros. / This dissertation presents how the way the Guyanese writer Wilson Harris creates characters in The Sleepers of Roraima (1970) resonates with premises of the idea of difference existing in indigenous cosmologies of lowland South America. In order to outline a relation between these planes, the work focuses on corporeality and perspective, two themes that are key to americanist ethnology, linking them to the processes of singularization of characters narrated in Harriss trilogy of novellas. More precisely, this research highlights how modes of individuation of the native peoples of the region reverberate in the dynamics that make up the fictional beings in his work. These dynamics, mediated by pre-individual aspects which are irreducible to a morphology of physiologically distinct embodiments, take part in the focalization of the novellas, producing an axis of proliferation of perspectives. Thus, the narrator turns away from the principle of identity as the common denominator of personification, converging with the differentiating replication that characterizes practices within many Amerindian ontologies. This study shows that the analyzed characters are not defined by intellectual or psychological boundaries, but vary relationally as they actualize points of views unfolded by narrative features such as oxymorons and parallelisms. Such textual procedures are directed against the determinism of mimetic realism, through lines of imbrication between baroque dilemmas, surrealist bricolages and the Amerindian notion of difference. As from this literary analysis, this dissertation outlines contributions to deepening a reciprocity of perspectives between Americanist ethnology, the philosophy of difference and literary studies, benefiting from this symmetrization as a point of entry for interrogating modern antipodes such as nature/culture, individual/society and we/others.

Esta dissertação apresenta como a criação de personagens realizada pelo escritor guianense Wilson Harris em The Sleepers of Roraima (1970) ressoa com premissas da ideia de diferença existente em cosmologias ameríndias. Para traçar uma relação entre esses planos, o trabalho foca na corporalidade e na perspectiva, tópicos fundamentais do americanismo tropical, articulando-os aos processos de singularização de personagens narrados na trilogia de novelas de Harris. Destaca-se como modos de individuação de povos nativos da região repercutem com as dinâmicas que compõem os seres ficcionais da obra. Essas dinâmicas, mediadas por aspectos pré-individuais irredutíveis a uma morfologia de personificações fisiologicamente discreta, participam da focalização das novelas, de modo que esta funciona como eixo de proliferação de perspectivas. Assim, o narrador se afasta do princípio de identidade como medida régia da personificação, convergindo com a replicação diferenciante própria de práticas de muitas ontologias ameríndias. O estudo mostra que as personagens analisadas também não são finalizadas por contornos intelectuais ou psicológicos, mas variam relacionalmente à medida que atualizam pontos de vista desdobrados por recursos narrativos como oxímoros e paralelismos. Tais procedimentos textuais dirigem provocações de Harris contra o determinismo mimético do realismo, por meio de linhas de encontro entre dilemáticas barrocas, bricolagens surrealistas e a noção ameríndia de diferença. A partir desta análise literária, a dissertação esboça contribuições para o aprofundamento de uma reciprocidade de perspectivas entre a etnologia americanista, a filosofia da diferença e os estudos literários, considerando possíveis rendimentos dessa simetrização para o questionamento de antípodas modernos tais como natureza/cultura, indivíduo/sociedade e nós/outros. / This dissertation presents how the way the Guyanese writer Wilson Harris creates characters in The Sleepers of Roraima (1970) resonates with premises of the idea of difference existing in indigenous cosmologies of lowland South America. In order to outline a relation between these planes, the work focuses on corporeality and perspective, two themes that are key to americanist ethnology, linking them to the processes of singularization of characters narrated in Harriss trilogy of novellas. More precisely, this research highlights how modes of individuation of the native peoples of the region reverberate in the dynamics that make up the fictional beings in his work. These dynamics, mediated by pre-individual aspects which are irreducible to a morphology of physiologically distinct embodiments, take part in the focalization of the novellas, producing an axis of proliferation of perspectives. Thus, the narrator turns away from the principle of identity as the common denominator of personification, converging with the differentiating replication that characterizes practices within many Amerindian ontologies. This study shows that the analyzed characters are not defined by intellectual or psychological boundaries, but vary relationally as they actualize points of views unfolded by narrative features such as oxymorons and parallelisms. Such textual procedures are directed against the determinism of mimetic realism, through lines of imbrication between baroque dilemmas, surrealist bricolages and the Amerindian notion of difference. As from this literary analysis, this dissertation outlines contributions to deepening a reciprocity of perspectives between Americanist ethnology, the philosophy of difference and literary studies, benefiting from this symmetrization as a point of entry for interrogating modern antipodes such as nature/culture, individual/society and we/others.

Ce mémoire comprend deux volets : une étude théorique et un texte de création littéraire. Dans un premier temps, il s’agir d’étudier le rôle du désir dans la démarche thématique et philosophique employée par l’écrivain Wilson Harris dans son roman The Palace of the Peacock. Ainsi démonterons-nous dans le premier chapitre que Harris se sert – de façon paradoxale – du désir empirique pour faire valoir les limites mêmes de celui-ci. Nous aborderons dans le deuxième chapitre le rapport problématique qu’entretient, chez Harris, la subjectivité féminine avec la subjectivité masculine. En particulier, nous examinerons la représentation de ce rapport sous la forme de métaphores ayant trait à l’environnement et à l’anatomie. Nous avancerons que le caractère problématique que revêt le rapport entre subjectivités féminine et masculine dans le roman est en quelque sorte nécessitée par l’écriture même de Harris. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous prendrons part aux débats sur la poétique qui animent la littérature contemporaine afin de situer notre propre élan vers la création littéraire. En même temps, nous entreprendrons une tentative de récupération de certains des concepts théoriques formulés par Harris, en lien avec notre propre poétique. S’ensuivra notre projet de création littéraire, intitulé HEROISM/EULOGIES, qui constitue le quatrième et dernier chapitre du mémoire. Ce texte, extrait d’un projet d’écriture créative plus vaste, trace les mouvements d’un certain nombre de sujets à travers une Amérique imaginée. / This study contains two parts: a theoretical component and a literary text. The theoretical component discusses desire as a thematic and philosophical methodology in Wilson Harris’s The Palace of the Peacock. Chapter one argues that Harris paradoxically makes use of forms of empirical desire to demonstrate its epistemological limits. Chapter two discusses the problematic situation of female subjectivity in relation to male subjects, through environmental and anatomic metaphors, which Harris’s writing necessitates. Chapter three discusses contemporary poetics in order to situate my impetus for literary writing and attempts to salvage some of Harris’s theoretical concepts in dialogue with my own poetics. Chapter four contains the creative writing project, HEROISM/EULOGIES—an excerpt from a larger project—that charts the movement of various subjects across an imagined American landscape.

Ce mémoire comprend deux volets : une étude théorique et un texte de création littéraire. Dans un premier temps, il s’agir d’étudier le rôle du désir dans la démarche thématique et philosophique employée par l’écrivain Wilson Harris dans son roman The Palace of the Peacock. Ainsi démonterons-nous dans le premier chapitre que Harris se sert – de façon paradoxale – du désir empirique pour faire valoir les limites mêmes de celui-ci. Nous aborderons dans le deuxième chapitre le rapport problématique qu’entretient, chez Harris, la subjectivité féminine avec la subjectivité masculine. En particulier, nous examinerons la représentation de ce rapport sous la forme de métaphores ayant trait à l’environnement et à l’anatomie. Nous avancerons que le caractère problématique que revêt le rapport entre subjectivités féminine et masculine dans le roman est en quelque sorte nécessitée par l’écriture même de Harris. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous prendrons part aux débats sur la poétique qui animent la littérature contemporaine afin de situer notre propre élan vers la création littéraire. En même temps, nous entreprendrons une tentative de récupération de certains des concepts théoriques formulés par Harris, en lien avec notre propre poétique. S’ensuivra notre projet de création littéraire, intitulé HEROISM/EULOGIES, qui constitue le quatrième et dernier chapitre du mémoire. Ce texte, extrait d’un projet d’écriture créative plus vaste, trace les mouvements d’un certain nombre de sujets à travers une Amérique imaginée. / This study contains two parts: a theoretical component and a literary text. The theoretical component discusses desire as a thematic and philosophical methodology in Wilson Harris’s The Palace of the Peacock. Chapter one argues that Harris paradoxically makes use of forms of empirical desire to demonstrate its epistemological limits. Chapter two discusses the problematic situation of female subjectivity in relation to male subjects, through environmental and anatomic metaphors, which Harris’s writing necessitates. Chapter three discusses contemporary poetics in order to situate my impetus for literary writing and attempts to salvage some of Harris’s theoretical concepts in dialogue with my own poetics. Chapter four contains the creative writing project, HEROISM/EULOGIES—an excerpt from a larger project—that charts the movement of various subjects across an imagined American landscape.