UM DIZER QUE TEM SUA HISTÓRIA: CARTAS DE AMORES HOMOSSEXUAIS NO SÉCULO XIX

Abstract

In this paper, our objective is to analyze letters written by literary figures in the 19th century in which homoaffective discourses emerge. Based on the theoretical and methodological framework of the French-Brazilian Discourse Analysis, as developed by Pêcheux ([1975] 2009, [1982] 2010) and Orlandi (2004, 2010, 2012), we will investigate how the meanings in these letters – when made public – reveal subject positions that escape the norms of the medical, legal, and religious fields of the time, which condemned homosexuality. Following Souza (1997) regarding the interplay between the public and private spheres in letters – with letters functioning as writings of the subject – we will discuss how, in the public range, discourses on homosexualities were censored and/or impossible, while in the private space of letters, other meanings could be produced. Our analytical approach thus focuses on identifying regularities in the forms of representation of (homo)sexualities in these discourses, especially considering that the homosexual subject emerges as a category precisely in the second half of the 19th century.