ORDER, GENDER AND TRANSGRESSION IN GUSTAVO BARROSO’S THE LADY OF PANGIN

Abstract

In 2017, the 85th anniversary of the publication of the historical novel, A Senhora de Pangim (The Lady of Pangim), by Gustavo Barroso (1932), was completed. It was reissued in Lisbon by the General Agency of the Colonies, in the celebrations of the Portuguese centenaries (1940). In Brazil, it was still republished in the form of comics "for adults" in 1958. After this last edition, the novel fell by the wayside. The novel seeks to reconstruct, through questionable documentary sources, the biography of Dona Maria Úrsula de Abreu and Lencastre, daughter of Portuguese, born in Brazil, and was engaged in the army of the King of Portugal at the dawn of the eighteenth century, as the soldier Baltazar of Couto Cardoso, having served in Goa at least till 1714. Easily inserted in the literary series of the "warrior maiden", The Lady of Pangim imposes a pertinent reflection on queer studies.

Keywords

• gender
• national identity
• narrative
• history
• xxth portuguese colonial literature