Tradição e descontinuidade na epopeia de Gonçalo Tavares

Abstract

The present paper discusses Uma Viagem à Índia - Melancolia contemporânea (um itinerário), an epic by Gonçalo M. Tavares, focusing its dialogue and disruption with literary tradition, especially the lusophone one. Therefore, we analyze the relations that this contemporary epic holds with Os Lusíadas, by Luís de Camões, which has its theme and structure reinvented, Mensagem, by Fernando Pessoa, which prophetic note is subverted, and Ulysses, by James Joyce, whose proceedings such as the appropriation of paradigmatic icons of the western literary tradition are referred to. We intend to discuss how the epic genre, as a narrative which contributes to the foundation of a political community, is taken and transformed by Gonçalo Tavares’s work.