Jorge de Sena, o poeta exorcista

Abstract

The research investigates how Jorge de Sena operates moral deliverances in aesthetic, political and erotic spheres, in critical analysis and in the literary corpus, executing an ironic subversion of the Christian notion of exorcism. The frequent appearance of the term “exorcism” (and similar ones) and its relations with freedom are analyzed. The hypothesis is raised that the notion works as a propelling base of his literary compositions long before the publication of Exorcisms (1972) and can be considered an exegetical operator. To verify this hypothesis, the reading of texts written throughout Sena’s trajectory intends to evidentiate which emphasizes the need for moral dispossession to achieve free aesthetic experimentations. This poetic attitude is able to demonstrate uncensored treatment of political differences and unquietments (in regard to the fascist regimes in Portugal and Brazil, which twice drove him into exile) and erotic disinhibition. Sena conceives thus the self-image of an exorcist poet, whose performance participates particularly in the consolidation of his ethical and libertarian worldview and in the eroticism sacralization. Committed to human dignity and to the vigor of literature in resisting censorship and prescriptive controls, the poet singularly projects poetic exorcisms as openings to the readers’ becoming free.