Novelo de verso: fios de memória, tradição e performance tecendo a poesia de cordel

Abstract

This dissertation is about cordel’s poetry. I deal here with the improvised declamations that are made in the fairs of São Cristóvão, in Rio de Janeiro, and in the Central of Campina Grande. The poetic communication aspects of the performances’ textuality are approached observing the integration among poets, audience and scenarios, merged by the narratives and crossed by memories and traditions. For this, concepts such as performance, orality, narrative, memory and traditions are convened in a dialogue between Paul Ricoeur and Paul Zumthor; and Foley's performance arena and word-power. To talk about cordel, the foundation proposed by Carvalho, Lemaire and Santos is implemented. The accomplishment of a bibliographical revision listed a trajectory of the concepts that served as a starting point to produce another view towards the phenomenon. More open, instead of closing a fragmented definition, this view allows the concept to incorporate other cultural manifestations that can be understood as part of a symbolic universe that the cordel constitutes. In order to accomplish this goal, field and follow-up activities at both fairs were carried out, anonymously, to observe the relationships that emerge in the spaces. From the observations, theoretical concepts were established to fundament the discussions. Then, new visits were carried out in the fairs to confront analytically these concepts and the actual phenomenon. The performances have raised questions related to the absent presence and the forged memory, to the definition of the cordel, which proved to be undisciplined and fleeting; also to the constitutive flow of performances, memories and traditions in-between, and defining what is to be called cordel.