The Anglo-American Gothic Shadow in Contemporary Portuguese Art and Literature

Abstract

The Anglo-American Gothic Shadow in Contemporary Portuguese Art and Literature

University of Évora, Évora, Portugal University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract:

When we feel very pessimistic about our present and future, it is perhaps even more necessary to delve deeper into works created by a group of Portuguese writers and artists through which we can perceive the influence of the Anglo-American Gothic creativity, always interested in expressing the anxieties, obsessions, fears and melancholic feelings that characterize a very particular aesthetic sensitivity. In this essay, the influence of several Gothic themes and concepts on this group of Portuguese writers will be associated with the psychoanalyst concept of “shadow” proposed by Carl Gustav Jung, and the concepts of “the return of the repressed” or “Das Unheimliche” by Sigmund Freud to reveal the importance of giving voice to the reality of the dark side of human existence in most of the works here studied. From the disturbing atmospheres of Ana Teresa Pereira’s fictional universe, to Gonçalo M. Tavares “Black Books” , or to David Soares’ associations with dark Fantasy; and the tragic poetry of José Luís Peixoto, so closely connected to the poetic and musical Gothic of Moonspell’s lead singer, Fernando Ribeiro; and also taking into account Nuno Cera’s pictures of nightmarish sceneries of big city centers, we will highlight some very interesting and original dark visions in Portuguese literature and art today.

Keywords: Gothic Shadow; Anglo-American Gothic; Portuguese Art and Literature