Abstract

TORRES, Eduardo Cintra. When love and the crowd meet in literature. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2008, n.58, pp.155-173. ISSN 0873-6529.

Within the framework of the sociology of literature, this essay examines the literary texts in which the crowd and erotic love intermix. We begin with Madame Bovary and texts by Baudelaire and De Quincey to arrive at two Portuguese stories, “A Ruiva”, by Fialho de Almeida, and “Amor de Outrora”, by Florbela Espanca. All of the texts tell of socially censurable love and all the protagonists in them benefit from the anonymity of the crowd, from which they receive an erotic charge, to begin a love affair as if it were accepted by society. In all the texts, however, the impossibility of the forbidden love being accepted by the crowd, as a symbol of society, is directly or indirectly present. The texts all end with separations or death. In this way, the eroticised crowd is ambivalent: it affords the erotic relationship but not its acceptance. It gives or represents both the good side of life in society - sociability, love - and the forcing of collective values on individuals.

Keywords : sociology of literature; crowd; eroticism.

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