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Concerning the Eccentricities of the Marquis of Valada: Politics, Culture and Homosexuality in Fin-de-Siècle Portugal

2002; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1363460702005001002

1461-7382

Robert Howes,

Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

This article describes three homosexual scandals in Portugal in the 1880s, including one involving a prominent politician, the Marquis of Valada. It shows how these scandals were publicized by the cartoonist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and later served as the inspiration for two novels by Abel Botelho and Alfredo Gallis, which dealt openly with the subject of homosexuality. It describes theoretical developments in the debate among historians between essentialists and social constructionists, particularly a recent article by David Halperin. It then analyses the various representations of homosexuality in the works described according to the categorizations proposed by Halperin and discusses to what extent they bear out his suggestions. It also highlights the change in discourse which can be observed in this episode.