THEMATIC DIMENSIONS ABOUT DEATH IN UNPOPULAR TALES, BY AGUSTINA BESSA-LUÍS

Abstract

This study highlights spheres of the life and work of Agustina Bessa-Luís, the critical reception and theoretical contributions about the themes selected in the writer's short stories. More specifically, it will be researched how the theme of death composes different possibilities of literary construction in the short stories "A Cold Winter" (1984), "Green Philosophy" (1984), "The Approved Lovers" (2002) and "The Procession" (2024). This work takes place in dialogue with the considerations raised by the critical reception of Catherine Dumas (2011) and Anamaria Filizola (2022); and with some theoretical contributions from the strands of Theme and Thematology, arranged in the conceptions proposed by Álvaro Manuel Machado and Daniel-Henri Pageaux (2001) and by Boris Tomachevski (2014). The research highlights certain contributions of the writer to the modality of the short story; it highlights the procedures of social criticism, psychological investigation of the characters, compositional diversity; and it points to a specific adoption of theoretical proposals on theme and motive.