Novas Cartas Portuguesas: o gênero epistolar e a releitura do cânone literário português

Abstract

This research questions the canonical marginality of New Portuguese Letters (1972) and the inclusion of female authors in the Portuguese literary narrative, from the observation that the emergence of women authorship in Portugal was not the subject of critical readings that allowed grasping the literary procedures proposed by women's agency. The readings of the Portuguese literary canon that are guided by gynocritical methodologies of female works retrieval put New Portuguese letters as a literary milestone for the writers who start writing after 1972, paving the way for canon revisionist projects focused on gender category. Taking as its starting point the seventeenth-century letters of Mariana Alcoforado, the three Marias use a genre of autobiographical domain associated with the feminine expression to promote a dialogue with the society of the time. Sharing the credits for this collaborative work, they deliberately do not sign each text. Through these formal procedures, New Portuguese Letters implode categories of authorship and authority of the texts.