Publicação
The Imaginary of death in Portuguese folktales
| Resumo: | The Human imaginary is, by definition, a complex phenomenon that projects itself into images that are not always easy to interpret. However, several studies have deepened our knowledge on this domain, mostly the works developed by the French school of Studies on the Imaginary (Gilbert Durand, Claude-Gilbert Dubois, Philippe Walter, Joël Thomas, Jean-Jacques Wunenburger, and in Portugal, Helder Godinho). A particularly fruitful corpus on which this theoretical line sometimes focuses is that of folktales, narratives that are both seminal and marginal in relation to the canon of world tales. Given their condition of products developed over centuries, constantly reworked and recounted, multiple constellations of the Imaginary have crystallized very clearly in these short stories. This article addresses one of these complex subjects, the image of death, transmitted in filigree by a considerable number of texts, allowing us to identify a set of significant characteristics ranging from the feeling of inevitability and democracy, to the carnivalesque dedramatization of this significant moment that establishes the end of life. In fact, despite some marks of the Christian and Catholic worldview, the studied tales do not fail to convey ideas and images that can be traced back to primordial and universal fears and anxieties. |
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| Autores principais: | Barros Dias, Isabel |
| Assunto: | imaginário morte contos tradicionais dicotomia bem-mal cosmovisão católica medos e imagens atávicos imaginary death folktales good-evil dichotomy Catholic worldview atavistic fears and images |
| Ano: | 2019 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | artigo |
| Instituição associada: | Departamento de Línguas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro |
| Idioma: | português |
| Origem: | Forma Breve |
| Resumo: | The Human imaginary is, by definition, a complex phenomenon that projects itself into images that are not always easy to interpret. However, several studies have deepened our knowledge on this domain, mostly the works developed by the French school of Studies on the Imaginary (Gilbert Durand, Claude-Gilbert Dubois, Philippe Walter, Joël Thomas, Jean-Jacques Wunenburger, and in Portugal, Helder Godinho). A particularly fruitful corpus on which this theoretical line sometimes focuses is that of folktales, narratives that are both seminal and marginal in relation to the canon of world tales. Given their condition of products developed over centuries, constantly reworked and recounted, multiple constellations of the Imaginary have crystallized very clearly in these short stories. This article addresses one of these complex subjects, the image of death, transmitted in filigree by a considerable number of texts, allowing us to identify a set of significant characteristics ranging from the feeling of inevitability and democracy, to the carnivalesque dedramatization of this significant moment that establishes the end of life. In fact, despite some marks of the Christian and Catholic worldview, the studied tales do not fail to convey ideas and images that can be traced back to primordial and universal fears and anxieties. |
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