What is an author? Reflections on the female presence in Luso-Brazilian cultural scene before 1822

Abstract

Starting from a discussion of the concept of authorship by Michel Foucault and Roger Chartier, this paper reexamines this concept taking as a starting point the reality of women’s writing in the lusophone space before the introduction of the printing press in Brazil. The analysis of the Portuguesebrazilian literary field of the colonial period, the exam of the ways texts were disseminated and circulated and of the surveillance various powers exerted upon them as well as of the ways in which authors managed to evade this surveillance indicate that, for the luso-brazilian case it may make more sense to take into account theoretical models proposing a dynamic vision of the social space, like Pierre Bourdieu’s or Itamar Even-Zohar’s.