Title Information (lang="eng")
Title
Sexuality and misogyny in Fernando Pessoa
Subtitle
The Duke of Parma's contribution to the topic
Title Information (lang="por")
Title
Sexualidade e misoginia em Fernando Pessoa
Subtitle
a contribuição de The Duke of Parma para o tema
Name: Personal (orcid) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/identifiers/orcid.html", valueURI="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2745-3697")
Name Part
Martines, Enrico
affiliation
Università di Parma
Role
Role Term: Text (marcrelator)
Author
Type of Resource (primo) (authorityURI="https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Product_Documentation/020Primo_VE/Primo_VE_(English)/100Loading_Records_from_External_Sources_into_Primo_VE/Configuring_Normalization_Rules_for_External_Resources_(Primo_VE)#Supported_Resource_Types_in_Primo_VE")
articles
Genre (aat) (authorityURI="https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/index.html", valueURI="http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300048715")
articles
Origin Information
Date Issued
June 2026
Date Issued (keyDate="yes", encoding="w3cdtf")
2026-06
Language (usage="primary")
Language Term: Code (iso639)
eng
Language Term: Text
English
Physical Description
Extent (unit="pages")
38
digitalOrigin
born digital
Abstract (lang="eng")
This essay examines the intersection of sexuality, misogyny, and male intellectual superiority in Fernando Pessoa’s work, focusing on his unfinished tragedy The Duke of Parma. The Duke emerges as a psychologically troubled, ostensibly “chaste” figure who expresses revulsion toward the female body and sexuality. The study situates this play alongside other writings—Marcos Alves, Pessoa’s mediumistic texts, A Cadella, and passages from The Book of Disquiet and Epithalamium—to consider whether such views reflect authorial belief or function as dramatic constructs. It argues that the Duke’s rejection of women is grounded in a belief in male intellectual supremacy and in a “higher” homosocial bond beyond physical desire, while female sexuality is cast as impure and inferior. These ideas resonate with a recurrent motif in Pessoa’s work: abstinence as a condition of intellectual or artistic superiority.
Abstract (lang="por")
Este ensaio examina a intersecção entre sexualidade, misoginia e superioridade intelectual masculina na obra de Fernando Pessoa, centrando-se na sua tragédia inacabada The Duke of Parma. O Duque surge como uma figura psicologicamente perturbada, ostensivamente “casta”, que manifesta repulsa pelo corpo feminino e pela sexualidade. O estudo coloca esta peça em diálogo com outros escritos — Marcos Alves, os textos mediúnicos de Pessoa, A Cadella e passagens do Livro do Desassossego e de Epithalamium — para avaliar se tais posições refletem convicções autorais ou funcionam como construções dramáticas. Argumenta-se que a rejeição do feminino assenta numa crença na supremacia intelectual masculina e numa “ligação” homossocial superior ao desejo físico, enquanto a sexualidade feminina é representada como impura e inferior. Estas ideias articulam-se com um motivo recorrente na obra pessoana: a abstinência como condição de superioridade intelectual ou artística.
Subject
Name: Personal (naf) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50016857")
Name Part
Pessoa, Fernando
Name Part: Date
1888-1935
Subject
Title Information
Title
The Duke of Parma
Subject
Topic (Local) (lang="eng")
Sexuality
Subject
Topic (LCSH) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85086002")
Misogyny
Subject
Topic (Local) (lang="eng")
Multiplicity
Subject
Topic (Local) (lang="por")
Sexualidade
Subject
Topic (Local) (lang="por")
Misoginia
Subject
Topic (Local) (lang="por")
Multiplicidade
Related Item: Host
Title Information (lang="eng")
Title
Pessoa Plural
Part Number
Issue 29
Related Item: Host
Title Information (lang="por")
Title
Pessoa Plural
Part Number
No. 29
Part
Part Detail: issue
Part Number
29
Part Caption
no.
Extent (unit="page")
Start
162
End
199
Access Condition: use and reproduction (href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/")
Use and reproduction of this resource are governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-ShareAlike" License.
Identifier: DOI
10.26300/rxc3-5857