A CHANSON DE ROLAND NA GÊNESE DO GRANDE SERTÃO: UM EXERCÍCIO DIALÓGICO

Abstract

 This paper aims to present a comparative analysis between the novel
Grande sertão: veredas, by JoãoGuimarães Rosa, and the anonymous medieval french
poem Chanson de Roland. It is my intention to demonstrate how the creative process of
the work of Rosa, extremely related to the language itself, to memory and to the
traditional imaginary of “sertão” (this brazilian denomination of a specific region)
leads the reader to observe the similarities between this novel and the chanson de geste
that flourished in the eleventh century; in a more specific way, I intend to show how
JoãoGuimarães Rosa, specially in some epic passages of its novel, uses textual
appropriation of the Chanson, by doing a paraphrase in the very essence of the literary
statement. By this procedure, his creation process is sustained by the intertextuality,
and is characterized by the dialogical practice, what goes far from the documental
character of the regionalist narrative to sign its fictionality. Yet I would like to rebound
that this procedure does not means a eccentricity or extravagance, since the medieval imaginary, in the intersection of cultural universes, is still alive and present i this specif region tradition