A domesticação do corpo e a subversão da sexualidade feminina na literatura: do Iluminismo ao Naturalismo

• Autor(a) principal: SANTOS, Maria Aparecida Conceição Mendonça
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFMA
• Texto Completo: http://tedebc.ufma.br:8080/jspui/handle/tede/1514
• topic: Eterno Feminino; Sexualidade Feminina; Discursos; Eternal Feminine; Female Sexuality; Discourses; Teoria Literária

This work consists in showing a reflection about the female sexuality through a rich dialogue between History and Literature in order to highlight the assimilation and spread of the imaginary about the female body through literary works and movements. For this purpose, it was highlighted, first, some symbolic constructions that promoted the conception of an alleged ontological existence of a feminine nature, resignified in this research by the idea of an eternal feminine, that it would be appropriate and disseminated through various legitimating discourses, among them, the very literary discourse. In addition, it aims to emphasize not only the external influences exerted on literary discourse in the representation of a particular conception of reality guided by the hierarchical difference between sexes, but it also highlighted the active character of the literature in the construction and propagation of those values. Concomitantly with this, it was emphasized during the research, the mechanisms of control and repression that acted upon the female body and sexuality, which would be gradually produced, operated and improved according to the needs and interests of each society. In this perspective, in order to analyze the views on femininity propagated by the literature of the Nineteenth Century, it was evidenced the ruptures and continuities in relation to both social imaginary as the behaviors and meanings that were directed and imputed to women, taking another times as reference, observing, as well, its transformations along time, which would be ruled not only by the substitution of a discourse by another, but, mainly, by the continuous overlapping of a discourse by another, forming, in this way, a long-term structure. For this purpose, it demonstrate the perception of some authors of the Enlightenment regarding this issue, as well, as how the writers of the Romantic and Realistic movements worked this theme. Finally, it aimed to prioritize the analysis of the Naturalist School, relating it to the theme worked through the production of authors such as Émile Zola, Aluísio Azevedo and Júlio Ribeiro, highlighting how the nuances about female sexuality were manifested in their productions and the way which the various institutionalized knowledge of the Nineteenth Century sought todeny it, idealize it, and, finally, objectify it.