Das feias úlceras de Jó: o discurso simbolista e médico sobre o phatos (Curitiba, final do século XIX e início da Nova República)

Abstract

The present research is the result of perceptions that is possible a dialogue between the medical discourse and the symbolist discourse. On the one hand, there is a perception in favor of the modern, of the technique, of the science and of the rationality. It is not common to find in medical discourse devices that reach the emotional field. There is the notion that the body is an empty symbol, which is the bridge between cause and solution: it is as if the doctor were investigating and finding measures to solve the disease as a whole; The concern is collective, not individual. Otherwise, in the symbolist discourse, the individual prevails in relation to the collective. It is as if there is a marble tower that places the symbolist poet on a plateau above society. Moreover, it is as if Symbolist poetry rejects rational, scientific assumptions and the broad development of technique. That is, there is a clash between both discourses, even if the symbolist side appropriates the organic and aspects of 19th century science. Having said that, this work intends to relate the medical discourse with the symbolist discourse. The first will be based on the medical theses developed in Curitiba in the period that we understand as the New Republic. The symbolist discourse will be based on the symbolist magazines that are established at the same time. Our research problems are, therefore, the following: is there a plausible comparison between the phatos portrayed by the Symbolist perspective, and the phatos portrayed by the medical theses? Does metaphor aid in this relationship? What are their similarities and dissimilarities? How were modernity and modernization incorporated by the two perspectives? To solve such questions, our main objective is to compare the medical and literary discourse, thinking about the phatos and their unfolding. For that, the dialogue with the following authors will be considered: Richard Ellmann (1991); Marcel Raymond (1997) and Edmundo Wilson (2004), among others, as it becomes necessary.