“Frames of Fear” in modern and contemporary portuguese literature

Abstract

This article intends to offer a panoramic view of key names of modern and contemporary Portuguese literature from a fear perspective. At first, we present the reasons for the focus on the emotion as a theme and as an inherent element of literary creation. The limitations and difficulties of such approach are hereafter discussed. Finally, based on Portuguese names – but not only –, we develop how fear ambivalently integrates itself to literary works as a cause and effect of writing. Highlighting fear, especially in contemporaneity, means a protection of the transit of affects and a resistance to impoverishment and / or mechanization of experience.