The plasticity of cordel leaflets: from the nomadism of voices to the texture of the Northeastern imaginary in O Romance do Pavão Misterioso

Abstract

The constructions of the Northeastern people's imagination are part of the cultural heritage of the region which makes them become relevant sources of research. Cordel literature presents itself as a living production in the sociocultural context in which it operates. Woven by voices from the oral tradition, it constitutes popular art that interweaves reality and fiction in narratives that bring out archetypal images and symbols (JUNG, 2014), intrinsic to mythical creation. Given this, the study investigates the processes of narrative meaning and cultural plasticity raised by the cordel O Romance do Pavão Misterioso, a work by José Camelo de Melo Rezende (1885-1964) from Paraíba. Through a bibliographical and documentary research, of a qualitative nature, this paper started from the readings carried out in Rodrigues (2011) and Santos (2017) on cordel literature, transiting through cultural studies and oral tradition (ZUMTHOR, 1993), from a symbolic-anthropological perspective (DURAND, 2002; JUNG, 2014; 2016). Observing the synchronicity and diachronicity of this narrative and the metanalytic process of the cultural imaginary that weaves it, it is understood understands that the diegesis printed in the verses stems from a mythical-symbolic structure that occurred as a continuous process of updating a collective imaginary in a northeastern context. Through the phenomenon of cultural plasticity (RODRIGUES, 2011; 2017), the study verifies the maintenance of archetypal voices that cordel literature updates and reframes in the context of contemporary media narratives.

Keywords
cordel literature; imaginary; cultural plasticity; Pavão Misterioso