VIDA E PROEZAS DE ALÉXIS ZORBÁS: THE CHAOSM OF NIKOS KAZANTZÁKIS?

Abstract

Between 1941 and 1943, Nikos Kazantzákis wrote Vida e proezas de Aléxis Zorbás, a novel published in 1946. The book is about a narrator in search of the full experience of life and arrived in Brazil in 1951. When buying a coal mine on the island of Crete, the narrator meets Aléxis Zorbás, a vivid and picturesque character, and seeks to give himself over to the appreciation and experience of life. Over the course of the narrative, we can conclude that Zorbás represents the figure of one who overcame men’s moral barriers and ethical judgments, but who did not disassociate himself from a certain primitivism. The apollonian and Dionysian principles interpenetrate both in Nietzsche’s thought and in kazantzakian prose, leading us to the idea of “chaosm”, an expression that, according to Roberto Machado, would come from Joyce and would concentrate the poles of measure and excess. We intend to dedicate ourselves to an analysis of the novel, aiming to investigate the relationship between Literature and Philosophy, in a more detailed way in the reflections present in the writing of Kazantzákis of Nietzsche’s thought in Assim falava Zaratustra. To do so, we will make use of contributions from scholars such as Cícero (2004, 2012), Machado (2004), Nunes (2010) and others.