The Presence of Death in the Portuguese oral tradition of children’s poetry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5902/2176148529406Keywords:
death, oral tradition, portuguese cancioneiro, nursery rhymes.Abstract
In Western countries, we are often reminded, from time to time, of our growing inability to confront death with resolve and dignity. There is a common assumption that but to speak of death is to produce pain and discomfort, emotions that are blatantly incompatible to the predominant standard patterns of felling of our modern societies, as the cultivation of beauty and the ideal of eternal youth. At least until the decades of 1870 and 1880, the Portuguese society - particularly the one that was still living in the countryside – had a much less restrictive standing towards death and the realities of aging and disease. Today, these topics and themes are thought mostly as inappropriate and, as a result, an increasing number of children are nowadays raised in total unawareness of death. Our investigation will examine the presence of the death theme in modern and contemporary oral children poetry in Portugal. We will examine, in particular, whether death appears more as a character or as an event in these stories, and reflect as well on its types and its semantic, symbolic and pragmatic scope. We will finally consider the possibility of integrating these texts into the context of learning and schooling.Downloads
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