Magic algebra: between genre and aesthetics: the uncanny in some short stories of Guimarães Rosa

Abstract

Considering a few of Guimarães Rosa's short stories, namely - "Makiné" and "Chronos kai anagke", from Antes das primeiras estórias; "Conversa de bois", from Sagarana; "A menina de lá" and "Um moço muito branco" from Primeiras Estórias; "Sobre a escova e a dúvida", "Os três homens e o boi dos três que inventaram o boi" and "Umas formas" from Tutaméia - this research will focus on how far and how differently at each point the uncanny (unheimlich) plays a significant role in his work. This approach will cover tales from his very early publications, in obscure medical magazines, during the twenties, up to his most experimental narratives, included in Tutaméia, published in the sixties. By doing so, my aim is to analyse the "evolution" of the uncanny as an aesthetic component of the estrangement in his work - a sign of its own formal developing, changing from a purer fantastic, in Todorov's concept, in the first narratives, passing through a Latin-American consciousness of the "magic-realism", towards a more metafictive and intricate personal solution, fully dependent on a new complexity and ingenuity of unusual perspective and narrative points of view.