LACERDA, T. F.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/6217672924970969; LACERDA, Talita Felix de.
Abstract:
Antiquity has been represented in different ways over the centuries by historians,
writers, playwrights, visual artists, etc. In view of this, this paper aims to analyze the
literary saga “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”, published between 2005 and 2009,
with five volumes, with the aim of understanding the reception and uses of the
ancient Greek past by contemporary times, considering that the work portrays
Ancient Greece as the founder of Western “civilization”. Using the methodology of
content analysis, the research aims to demonstrate how the work propagates the
representation of exceptionality of the ancient classical world, constructed by
modernity to compose a discourse in defense of the supposed linear continuity
between past and present of a “single” History of the West, a proposition that
emerged in the 19th century with nationalist and imperialist purposes of opposing the
“West” to the “East”. Thus, the research aims to contribute to the critique and
deconstruction of reductionist and colonialist receptions of antiquity that affirm the
superiority of the “classics” to the detriment of other societies of the time.