The end-of-century lesbian: a Portuguese fiction

The figure of the lesbian has haunted erotic and pornographic literature long before homosexuality was "invented" (Foucault) by psychiatric medicine in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. This paper deals with the representation of the " lesbian" in Portuguese fin- de- siecle literature. Those lesbians, created by and intended for a male audience, are the result and the product of a "straight mind" (Wittig) that fantasizes the relations between women while obliterating reality: the possibility of a true love between women. Nevertheless, at the turn of the century, some of them will come out the closet, more or less forced, giving a "face" to the invisible Portuguese lesbian.