Um exercício dialógico sobre a figura da Ama em Perdição, de Hélia Correia

Abstract

The present work is a study of the figure of Ama (nursemaid) in Perdição: exercício sobre Antígona (Perdition: an exercise on Antigone) (1991), a play by Portuguese writer Hélia Correia. With a rehearsal rhythm, the dissertation follows the trail of nursemaids from different eras, offering an outline of this marginal character through Iliad and Odyssey by Homer, while shaping the trophós mask in ancient Greek tragedies, with emphasis on The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, and on Medea and Hippolytus by Euripides. The investigation succeeds the rebirth of this character in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, supported by the studies of Barbara Heliodora, Raymond Williams, and Walter Benjamin. The contemporary drama also acknowledges the figure of the old wet nurses in the Age of Extremes, on the French stages, in Jean Anouilh's Antigone (1944). Therefore, this research will evidence the unfinished and dialogical recovery (in the recommended sense by Mikhail Bakhtin) of the classic Ama (nursemaid), following the character’s trail present in contemporary Portuguese theater. The literary montage method was followed as recommended by Benjamin, especially in the emphasis on remembering the history of the vanquished, under the aegis of historical materialism. To support Benjamin's thought, the elected works were Lembrar, escrever, esquecer (2006) by Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, and Walter Benjamin: aviso de incêndio – uma leitura das teses “Sobre o conceito de história” by Michael Löwy. With the support of Erich Auerbach, the concept of “figure” was resorted, and the observation of nursemaids was conducted since Euriclea (from Homer). The studies of Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Claude Mossé, and Jacquelline Romilly were essential to understand the social and artistic dynamics of the Greek world. Within the scope of Hélia Correia's critical fortune, the research of Maria de Fátima Silva (who produced the preface of Perdição (2006), and organized the collection of studies Furor: ensaios sobre a obra dramática de Hélia Correia (2006)) was centrally resorted. Finally, considering that, in Perdição by Hélia Correia, a dead nursemaid and her dead mistress act together, this study proposes to cross the light of thanatography and the voices of Dialogue of the Dead, by Lucian of Samosata, based on studies by Brazilian researchers Augusto Silva Júnior and Ana Clara Medeiros.