Por uma ciência benjaminiana da literatura: arqueologia da imagem do castelo em Teresa de Ávila, Herman Melville e Franz Kafka

Abstract

This research discusses three literary texts: Interior Castle, by Spanish Carmelite Teresa of Ávila; Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, a novella by the American author Herman Melville; and The Castle, a novel by Franz Kafka. These works share the presence of the literary imagery of the castle, characterized by its intermittency and the symptomatic re-signification it assumes in each text, a feature that incites comparative analysis. Thus, adhering to an uncommon perspective within the field of Comparative Literature, this study presents a methodological general objective, proposing an investigation of the aforementioned texts that, on the one hand, draws inspiration from the methods developed by Aby Warburg (in the famous Atlas Mnemosyne) and Walter Benjamin (in the Arcades Project); and, on the other, establishes itself as a “third way.” The specific objectives of this research consist in defining the foundations of a comparative method for the analysis of literary imagery and creating visual sets or “panels” (based on Warburg’s Atlas’ structuring) that seek to corroborate the identification of particularities of the castle imagery in the selected texts. It is proposed that the remarkably anachronistic analysis of literary imagery developed in this study constitutes an exercise that responds, at least to some extent, to the project of a Science of Literature (Literaturwissenschaft) postulated by Benjamin. Moreover, the methodological proposal laid out in this thesis, as well as the unprecedented intersection of the analyzed works, confer an innovative character to this research. Finally, the investigation is justified by its intent of formulating literary criticism aligned with Benjamin’s suggestion, prioritizing the valorization of the texts’ materiality over the predominance of theoretical biases and/or value judgments, a trait frequently observed in contemporary literary criticism.