The fantastic oral: a reading of Atala, by François-René Auguste de Chateaubriand

Abstract

Discussions on the concept of fantastic expand beyond fiction. Anthropology and Philosophy, according to Molino (1980), also examine this literary category and offer literature an anthropological reading. Considering this scenario, the present paper aims to confirm the origin of the fantastic narrative: oral literatures, especially those known as folktales. The theoretical framework of our research is based especially on the essay published in 1980 by Jean Molino, where the author analyses the relation between oral legend and the fantastic. In addition, this article will focus on récit Atala (1801), by the pre-Romantic French writer François-René Auguste de Chateaubriand (1768-1848). This text, despite not being a fantastic narrative in the exact sense of the term, uses the myth of the Noble Savage and the beliefs of nineteenth-century indigenous people. The legends of these native people permeated their imagination for a long time, constituting thus their own universe.