Revelations: the submerged essence

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present the metalinguistic mechanisms forged within a text and their relation to the literary discourse itself. To do so, we propose an analysis of the narrative “Cara-de-Bronze” (No Urubuquaquá, no Pinhém, 2001), by João Guimarães Rosa, in its global discursive structure and in each level of the generative path. As it unveils the tension between referentiality and poeticity as the center of the discursive construction of “Cara-de-Bronze”, the analysis characterizes the “assembly” process of the text throughout the long discursive path developed. Therefore, we address some issues in the scope of Paris school Semiotics, discussed by Barros (1994) and by Bertand (2003), in particular those related to meaning and what meaning appears to be or how it is perceived. We also discuss the enunciation field, as proposed by Dominique Maingueneau (1996, 2001), so as to outline the contradiction between the suggestion of the enunciatior’ s intention and its perception in the enunciation’s materiality. Having established the links between the examples mentioned and the “paths” to reach them, it will then be possible to bring forth the sought-after relation between the meta-discourse and the literary one.