Graphematic bodies: the silence of the subaltern and the literary history

Abstract

Can we rethink the space of literary history, which structures itself, as a canon, in terms of force and power, introducing the concept of the subaltern’s empty representation in order to question power and bio-power influence on literature? Such a problematic act, limited to some case studies (novels as Euclides’ Os sertões and Cornélio Penna’s Menina morta) – although with the wider aim to re-think new edges for an antagonist literary historiography –, approaches the complex critical question, deepening the engaged attempts carried out in order to critically incorporate the “homo sacer”, the excluded. It is clear that, in many cases, the intent of redemption have clashed with the tragic impasses of the unviablility of representation, except for the effort to “listen” to the syncopate voice of resistance that remains in a text. At the same time, it is important to assume, from such a perspective, the relationship between history and natural history, a link that, in spite of its internal tensions, may facilitate the emergence of residuals of power relations involved in any representation.