How to dismantle a Portuguese closet

Abstract

From a diachronic reading of the reception of Só, by António Nobre, we will try to demonstrate how Portuguese critics have closeted the poet and his production. This closeting can be understood in the light of the sexual taboos prevailing during the Estado Novo. Nonetheless, this closeting will continue long afterwards, including by one of the poet's greatest critics, the writer Mario Cláudio, himself a homosexual in the closet, as he will admit in Astronomy (2015).