BETWEEN THE GOTHIC AND THE FANTASTIC: Strands of the Uncanny in Álvares de Azevedo and Bernardo Guimarães
Fictional Uncanny; Gothic; Fantastic; 19th Century
Several 20th and 21st century theorists and researchers agree that, while the production of Uncanny Literature in Brazil was more prolific and diversified than our literary canon is capable of covering, its critical reception was scarce and a considerable amount of works fell into ostracism with time, like A ilha maldita, by Bernardo Guimarães. Regarding the 19th century, although Noite na taverna, by Álvares de Azevedo, was the only novel that did establish itself in the literary canon, several uncanny literary works were produced based on different foreign aesthetic references, especially the English Gothic Novel and the all-new Fantastic Literature in wide spread throughout Europe. Starting from this context of influences and reverberations, this research intends to draw a comparison between the narrative constructions in Noite na taverna and A ilha maldita, analyzing, therefore, how its influences and the narrative aspects of both works differ and how they are articulated to unveil their inscriptions to two distinct strands of the nineteenth-century Uncanny Literature: in this one, the Fantastic; in that one, the Gothic.