A gramática de Clarice: propostas éticas para a revisão de textos literários a partir do estudo da pontuação de “Perto do Coração Selvagem”

Abstract

The research started from Clarice Lispector’s critique of the intervention made in the punctuation marks during the French translation of Perto do Coração Selvagem, her first novel, to discuss the dangers of a proofreading of literary texts based only in normative grammar. To this end, we proceeded to a comparative study between the punctuation used by Clarice in her book and the model forms of use pointed out by Cunha and Cintra in Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo, chosen for its relevance in grammatical studies. The use of comma, dash and suspension points in different parts of the novel was studied in order to understand how the author created, through these textual devices, effects not always indicated by the normative grammar – and the way these effects relate to the artistic project of her writing. Thus, the research was able to conclude the insufficiency of the normative perspective to the proofreading of literary texts, which, generally, demands from the professional a performance capable of recognizing not only linguistic, but also discursive and stylistc aspects of the text. Some ethical guidelines, such as the knowledge of literary theory, linguistic variation, genre and discourse, and the development of attributes like reading memory, world knowledge and reading habit, were pointed out as proposals for an ethics of proofreading literary texts.