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Abstract: This thesis is the result of a research which had as objective analyzing Euclides da Cunha´s metaphorical discourse about Amazonia, and how that discourse is organized in the texts written by this author. The design of this general objective arose from the following research problems: what is Euclides da Cunha´s metaphorical discourse about Amazonia made of? What metaphors does he use to describe Amazonia in his texts? Why did he use so many metaphors to refer to the region? The study has searched for answer(s) to such questions, on the limits of the research nature, which has followed along three big guiding axes: Amazonia, Euclides da Cunha, and Metaphor. Through the analysis of Euclides´s texts, I try to show that he was a good metaphorist. I make the reading of the Amazonian metaphors in Euclides from a classical approaching (initiated by Aristotle), an interactionist approaching (whose precursor was I. A. Richards, and whose main exponent was Max Black), and conceptual approaching (created by George Lakoff and Max Johnson), and the live metaphor (proposed by Ricoeur). I explore, from each one of these theories, metaphors which Euclides da Cunha created for reflecting about his work and for describing geographical and landscaping aspects of Amazonia, as well as the people, social relationships, boundary conflicts, and other region snapshots. I describe Euclides da Cunha´s views on the Amazonia, having as starting point his Amazonian metaphors, and I explore the dichotomy on artistic writing versus scientific writing on the writer´s texts. The study has its support on one basic hypotheses: Euclides da Cunha, on his Amazonian texts, fights two crucial dilemmas: firstly the difficulty of dealing with a threefold boundary he had to pass by: boundaries of territory, of science, and of comprehensible things; secondly, the metalinguistic reflections about his texts, when he stumbles before science crossed lines with fiction, by feeling incompatibility between literary text and scientific text, but at the same time, he does not get rid of the trend of conciliating these two methodologies, inconceivable for him. In this work, I defend the thesis that the metaphor was the recourse found by Euclides da Cunha for dealing with two dilemmas. I develop considerations about this dichotomy in Euclides da Cunha´s writings, taking as basis the theoretical considerations of Ricoeur (1983), Lakoff and Johnson (2002) and Paiva (2005), principally. The methodological way of this thesis was made by the channel of bibliographic research, including on this purpose: the decisive points of travellers´ writing tradition about the Amazonia region, Carvajal´s reports on the nineteenth century; Euclides da Cunha´s texts, mainly those on Amazonia collectanea ? a lost paradise, published in 2003 by Editora Valer in Manaus/Am, besides the author´s active letters where he refers to the region; texts of theories about metaphors regarding different views and reflections on the dichotomy scientific language versus artistic language. The bibliographic research has supplied elements for the theoretical foundation and contributed for reinforcing the analyses and the final version of this thesis. Among the theoretical principles, indispensable for the study support, are the concepts on Amazonia, metaphor, metalanguage, and literature. The checking of different views and slopes on metaphor which I revisit has allowed me to recollect supplementary data, from diverse conceptions, which decisively contributed for enabling me a more diversified view, on different angles, about the main metaphors that Euclides da Cunha created on his interpretation of Amazonia. And, considering that the author´s texts are full of metaphors, I pointed out for this study only those that are relevant for the hypothesis highlighted. The research points out that Euclides wanted to build a language that synthesized the science and art truth. Writing about Amazonia, he has started this discourse, but it was incomplete, like the own earth incompleteness. Euclides has found the key for the metaphor enigma ? it only is able to say the unsayable, translate the untranslatable, embrace the unembraceable. Therefore, Euclides used it without parsimony. Metaphor is introduced there as a bridge over the ineffable abyss. And it still contributes to fill in many troublesome gaps both on scientific and artistic language. So I conclude that both in the case of sertões baianos and Amazonia, it was the metaphors that have redeemed Euclides, giving vigor to his writings and offering an access key to an unfinished world for in a certain way comprehend him. |
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