A écfrase em A bolsa amarela: re/pensando o regime linguístico da literatura infantojuvenil

Abstract

Lygia Bojunga’s book A bolsa amarela (“The yellow bag”, in a literal translation) is considered by literary criticism as a Brazilian children’s classic. Considering children’s literature stipulates both language and the child as institutional products (Rose, 1984), this study aims to see the yellow bag in spite of its medium—the written word. In this regard, it is presented a visual reading of A bolsa amarela, grounded in the concept of ekphrasis. From the multiple possibilities of understanding this transhistorical process, here prevails a performative approach (Webb, 2014) in light of the creative action inherent to the gaze (Clüver, 2017). In order to perform such reading, this study takes into account the description of the yellow bag in Chapter 2 of the book. The methodological tools that produce the analysis are those associated to a pictorial description (Louvel, 2006). It is in the interest of this study to argue that the graphic disposition of the description shapes a transition between literary and plastic systems. This textual opening to the imagination nourishes a shift in the language regime. The political implications of this argument stand as a critique to modernist linguistic ideologies that promote the substitution of images by written texts (Blommaert, 2005). It is the case of children’s literature when it seeks to introduce practices of reading oriented by the linguistic sign (Colomer, 2014). Therefore, this study reinforces a closer look to the aesthetic dimension of the written text, which operates a discursive movement that transforms what is written into illustration. The result of this process cannot be separated from a will to question how language is written, read and understood.