Primeiras estórias : o livro e a obra

Abstract

The present article aims to study Primeiras Estórias by Guimarães Rosa, as a planned work of design. The point of departure is the first edition, from 1961, when the collection displayed a cover with drawings of the stories and an illustrated index, both suggested by the author. Furthermore, the 21 stories of the volume are divided into two groupings of ten, with the story "O espelho" [The Mirror] in the middle. There thus exists a specular structure in which the first story (1) and the last (21) have the sarne protagonist anda similar narrative structure. One problem, then, is the relationship between the part and the whole, between the text and the structure. ln this vein, the isolated reading ofthe stories is placed into question, when removed from the context of the work in which they were conceived.