De Saint-Exupéry a Limeira : uma leitura comparativa de O Pequeno Príncipe

Abstract

When we ministered literature classes for High School groups, we realized that most students don't appreciate poetic texts because they consider them difficult to understand. How can we make them interested in poetry? After successful experiments involving the approach of cordel literature, we realized the compositional structure of this discursive genre can raise students awareness to the poetic language. So, we chose to produce for this dissertation an "expanded sequence of reading", destined to students at the seventh grade in Elementary School, approaching the cordel literature. This proposal, in addition to attending the need to produce didactic material focused on poetry, meets another deficiency observed in schools: the one that approaches literary literacy - as Candido (2011), Compagnon (2009), Cosson (2014) and Michelleti (2000) emphasized - and, especially, the non-canonical literature - according to Abreu (2006). To prepare this material we chose the philosophical tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (1943), and its cordel version which was published in 2015, by Josué Limeira, a cordelist from Pernambuco. The contextualization of the selected literary works resulted from the researchers conducted by Munhoz (2014) about the French writer s life and work and interviews granted by the cordelist and illustrator of The Little Prince in Cordel (2015). To conceptualize and analyze the discursive genres to which these literary works belong, we rely on Cortázar (2013), Bosi (1989) and Aragão (1985), authors who deal with the theory of the tale, also Abreu (2006), Evaristo (2011) and Marinho, and Pinheiro (2012), authors who deal with the appreciation of the cordel and non-canonical literature. To elaborate the activities, we analyzed the two statements following the reading steps suggested by Cosson (2014) and Micheletti (2000), and rediscussed by Corsi (2015), observing the elements which, according to Bakhtin (2003), represent the discursive genres - "thematic content," "compositional structure," and "style." The analysis of the intertextual relations between the literary works was performed from the studies of Kristeva (1974), Nitrini (2000), Jenny (1979), Samoyault (2008) and from the hypertextual and hyperesthetic categories of Genette (1989). According to what is in our proposal, based on Rildo Cosson s proposals (2014), the emphasis is on the dialogue between the texts addressed, their structural specificities, the appreciation of cordel literature, the relations between the epic genre - the one that joins the cordel - and the lyrical genre, using other discursive genres and audiovisual resources to explore the thematic content and contextualize as literary works. After the reading activities and interpretation of the statements, the students are invited to produce their own cordel literature, so that, throught a poetic way of writing, they can become more sensitive and receptive for the compositions they will come across their lives.