Open AccessMaterial truth in law and fiction in literature
Author(s) -
Douglas Ceccagno
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
anamorphosis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2446-8088
DOI - 10.21119/anamps.12.285-299/translation
Subject(s) - verisimilitude , realism , epistemology , criticism , narrative , relation (database) , credibility , literary criticism , sociology , philosophy , literary fiction , aesthetics , literature , art , computer science , database
In transdisciplinary intersection between Law and Literature, there is the need to approximate concepts, so that the theories that support one area are, to some extent, applicable to the other. This study aims at trying an application of the concept of material truth, which comes from legal studies, to the study of Literature, through its relation to the concepts of mimesis, realism and verisimilitude, used by literary criticism. This study assumes that no one of them is able to fulfil the needs of literary expression, so that an attempt to locate a material truth in Literature will fail too. The article discusses the realistic style in Literature based on different writers’ views on realism and discusses the concept of mimesis and the concepts of internal and external verisimilitude through Roland Barthes’s questioning of truth as understood by literary criticism. In addition, a brief analysis of the novel Leite derramado (Spilt milk), by Chico Buarque, demonstrates how, despite subverting several criteria that assure the verisimilitude, the narrative is able to ensure its credibility as fictional discourse and make the reader accept the fiction that it expresses.