Vupes’s Clef or communication and listening lessons in Grande Sertão: Veredas

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the character Vupes, the German, from Grande Sertão: Veredas (1956). For this, based on Riobaldo’s narration, historical, poetological and sound aspects that can bring information about the character and about the listening of Riobaldo are considered. Vupes and Riobaldo are studied from the communicational dimension of alterity, listening and the condition of the foreigner. For the study of this German character, we surveyed the state of the art of Guimarães Rosa’s relationship with Germany, analyzed letters, diaries, notebooks, maps, the writer's personal library and bureaucratic papers at the Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEB-USP).

KEYWORDS:
Guimaraes Rosa; Grande Sertão: Veredas; character biography; communication and listening; Germany