Abstract
I am interested in Modernist Literature, specifically written by women, and Clarice Lispector is a renowned 20th century Brazilian writer. I have studied and authored my dissertation on a few of her works, but now want to focus on Água Viva, which is considered a third stage Brazilian Modernist book. It is about a woman painter who is fascinated with the power of words and poses several existential questions. Edmund White has placed Lispector in the same pantheon as Kafka and Joyce, and Hélène Cixous has given several lectures on the writers’ oeuvre and style. I will focus on the voice of the woman narrator, who is facing her most honest and inner questionings as she goes through a stage in her life when she is the closest to understanding her own nature, her own existence as a Latin American woman. The flow of the prose-poetic work is intense, and the reader must also surrender themself entirely to the mind of the painter/poet. This way they will be able to understand what it is to be a mature and independent Brazilian woman of 50 years ago. Further, I will explain how I use literature in the world language classroom, in the hopes of motivating students to understand other cultures, learn and appreciate the power of words, and of literature.
Author Information
Jeanine Couto, Winston-Salem State University, United States
Paper Information
Conference: IICE2024
Stream: Challenging & Preserving: Culture
This paper is part of the IICE2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Couto J. (2024) Clarice Lispector’s “Água Viva”: Literature, Culture, and the Power of Words ISSN: 2189-1036 – The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii 2024 Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2024.6
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2024.6
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