Filosofia e mística em Uma Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres, de Clarice Lispector

Abstract

This study aims to highlight parallels between the themes and language used in the novel Uma Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres (1998) and those of existentialist and Neoplatonic philosophy and Neoplatonic-influenced mysticism, verifying how these elements appear and are articulated in the work's literary form. The research begins by identifying convergences between these traditions and Clarice's fiction in general, and this novel in particular. Based on the considerations of Benedito Nunes (1983, 1999, 2005, 2011) regarding the relations between philosophy and literature, as well as his considerations about the points of incidence of philosophical reflection in literature, and in dialogue with other authors at this intersection between philosophy, literature and mysticism, we conducted an analytical-comparative reading that revealed existentialist and Neoplatonic conceptions of life and the world embedded in the novel. We observed that, as in other works by the author, especially A Paixão Segundo G. H. (2009), the novel has at its core the protagonist's mystical experience as a transformative event. We identified that in the trajectory of the character Lóri there is a transition from existentialism to mysticism, and that after this change, the character goes through stages similar to those described in the mystical tradition, summarized by Underhill (2002). Furthermore, We found that to communicate the incommunicable of the mystical experiences that the character goes through, the author resorts to language similar, if not identical, to Neoplatonic language.