Passions of the reader: the affective call on Graciliano Ramos’s short-story “Baleia”

Abstract

Based on the principle that the study of reading, or more specifically the passional effects of meaning raised from reading, joins the analysis of the text itself, the aim of this article is to draw attention to the peculiarities of the interaction established between the author’s aesthetic work and the reader’s affective response. For this purpose, we are going to present a theoretical discussion about the subject, followed by an inquiry of the enunciative procedures employed by Graciliano Ramos on the shortstory “Baleia”. The idea is to comprehend the dynamics which conducts the reciprocal cycle between the pole of production and of reception of the literary enunciation, the poetic process that recovers the sensible experience as a form of opening to the affective interaction.