Cordel Literature. Multiple Game. Gender. Ginga. Popular Culture

The study described in this thesis starts from the observation that Brazilian cordel literature has been shaped as a cultural modality through multiple additions, based on dialogue between diverse cultural products and the incorporation of textualities associated with different pro- duction contexts. Cordel also shifts between different positions within the strongly hierar- chical spectrum of Brazilian culture, constructed within an authoritarian society and criss- crossed by inequalities imposed, among other factors, by persistent racism, and a sexist and exclusionary culture. Here, these multiple additions are treated as a multiple game, inspired by the idea of the game that Muniz Sodré associates with black culture in Brazil and with the image of the ginga movement in Capoeira, encompassing the playful and combative efforts of cordel poets who belong to subordinate groups, particularly black and female poets, with their multiple representations of gender, race and sexuality. In this text, we understand that cordel poets have been responsible for constructing a poetic/narrative collection which, although caught up in the complex issues arising from the constant categorization of cordel as popular culture, has remained active and powerful as an expression of subjectivities since the initial sedimentation of the cordel tradition, as demonstrated by the cordel battle pamphlets created by black and female poets. The idea of the multiple game as an Afro-Brazilian way of reading cordel, sees its writing as favouring conceptual characters, whose trajectory can be identified with movements to overcome subordination using the cordel text. This trajectory is also as- sociated with that of the aesthetic and political movement of the multiple game itself, featur- ing artists such as Inácio da Catingueira, Chica Barrosa, Zé Pretinho do Tucum, Dalinha Ca- tunda, Janete Lainha Coelho, Jarid Arraes, Salete Maria da Silva, Chico César and Bule Bule, and shifting the reading of cordel from an Iberian foundation to an Afro-centric perspective. This perspective, anchored in the movement of the multiple game, seeks to understand cordel as a discursive artefact that informs the power of these subjectivities and accesses the script- centric tradition, while introducing to it assertive and contesting aspects that reflect the vital forces of orality, benefiting from the playful and combative nature of black cultures in Brazil.