. ‘Changed according to the eyes that see them'

Camões and Pessoa by Saramago

Abstract

This study will analyze the play Que farei com este livro? (1980) and the novel O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis (1984). Using as theoretical tools what is suggested by Gérard Genette's reflection on the forms of transtextuality, we will observe in the works analyzed the intertextual relations that they establish with previous texts to which they would be critically replaced. These are two interesting cases of intertextuality, anchored in the parallel description of experiences of literary creation by the protagonists in contexts of crisis, which points to the discussion about the place of the writer in society and how the vicissitudes of this experience interfere in the receptivity of what is produced by the artist. The metaphors of exile and return are important in the plots of the works that we read here. The guiding principle of our reflection is the observation that the transtextual experience, based on the verticalized and radical reading experience of the works visited by Saramago, is, in the two books we analyzed, both the motivation for the author's creative initiative and the center of the characterization of the characters in their actions.