Raul Seixas, o Cowboy fora-da-lei: tradução performática como poética da liberdade

Abstract

The thesis proposes a reflection on the limits and possibilities of literature based on the articulation between literature, song and performance, taking as a starting point Bob Dylan’s speech when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. From this point of view, the dissolution of traditional boundaries of literature is discussed, highlighting multiple practices that involve the body, musicality and performance as part of contemporary literary work. The concept of “song-poem” is presented as a strategy to highlight the poetic power of songs, which gain body and meaning in performance, challenging classical notions of representation and authorship and proposing a more fluid view of the conception of genres. The proposed nomenclature also signals a perspective that proposes thinking about how several axes of reading complement each other and translate a conjuncture at the moment of the performance of poems that are sung. The concept of “performance translation” is designed as a response to this argumentative flow, to expand the traditional notion of translation, integrating it with Performance Studies and proposing translation as a multiple event, which goes beyond the triad established by Jakobson (1969) and involves the role of the interpreter as performer-translator. It is believed that the notion of performer-translator, proposed in this thesis, while challenging the traditional idea of authorship, assumes the role of a creative agent, capable of translating and staging difference, while also disseminating meanings. The analysis of the performances of Raul Seixas, studied here through the figure of the outlaw Cowboy, puts into practice the concept of performance translation, showing how the performance of his song-poems stages a poetics of freedom that critically translates the countercultural movements between the 1960s and 1970s, when Brazil faced processes of silencing during the years of military dictatorship.