Às Margens do Tejo e do Prata: confluências entre Saramago e Onetti

Abstract

In this work, we will approach, from the perspective of Comparative Literature, the novels Dejemos Hablar al Viento (1979), by Juan Carlos Onetti, and Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia (1977) by José Saramago. We begin of the assumption that their protagonists, Medina e H, function as alter egos offrom their creators. We know that both Onetti and Saramago produced novels based on existentialist themes and, thus, we analyze the reflections, writings and attitudes of the characters as if they were extensions of the novelists’ thought. H. and Medina, both painters, are beings interspersed by reflections about their ideologies and the way they live/ represent the world. In the case of Medina, the exile of Santa Maria in Lavanda; of H., Europe of the 1970s, including the Dictatorship of Salazar in Portugal. These impressions are recorded through the painting and/or written productions of the two characters. Finally, we intend to charter a parallel between both texts so that, besides the coincidence in time - after all, they were published on very close dates - another aspect that binds them is the very similar process of written production in which fiction and reality are under the same perspective. To contribute to this research, we bring theorists of Comparative Literature and also writers who are part of the specialized criticism of the Uruguayan author and the Portuguese author.