“Desenredo”, by João Guimarães Rosa: prosoetry, metapoetry, prior obituary or “irrational autobiography”?

Abstract

In March 1956, even before launching Grande sertão: veredas (his “irrational autobiography”), João Guimarães Rosa announces through a newspaper his project of taking a seat at the Brazilian Literature Academy, despite the fact he was almost an unpublished author, by that time. It was his first attempt, out of three, all of them punctuated by a deeply emotional distress: no less than seven years later, in 1963, he will get elected, almost by unanimity. Astoundingly, he starts postponing inexplicably the induction ceremony, and perishes precisely three days after the event he had adjourned for fours years long. Some newspapers announced that he would have foreseen his own death. Focused on that bio-poetical plot, this paper quests to unravel the main clues of a meta-poetical allegory whose lines could possibly hide Rosa’s commitment to his own poetry, to his plans to get elected, to the deadly induction ceremony, and his critical view upon the wide spread rivalry among Academy members, as it can be seen through “Desenredo”, from Tutameia – Terceiras estórias (1967). The present essay crisscrosses that famous “prosoem” in order to reach answers for the following genealogical questions: what are the limits between poetical narratives and prosoems, between story and history, critical interpretation and poetical transcreation, immortality and outlife (Fortleben), in the case of a author taking beyond the paroxysm the notion of “irrational autobiography”? In other words: according to its genealogy, could it be possible to read “Desenredo” as an irreverent metapoetic writing?