Death, candle, funeral

mourning and poetry bearing witness to the Brazilian military dictatorship

Abstract

In this article, our problem is related to the attempt to think about possible reasons for writing about the Brazilian military dictatorship in our contemporary literature. From there, our general objective is to reflect on the status of testimony and its implications in the work of mourning. Our research method is analytical-descriptive in a critical fashion. Our theoretical basis is mainly supported by Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Literature. At first, we return to Freud's ideas of mourning and melancholy for further consideration of the affective constellation of resentment. In a second stage, we exam Mbembe's necropolitics, Souza's necroethics, and Butler's category of grievable lives. Finally, in the third step, we explore the possibility of testimony, mainly, but not only, according to Agamben’s ideas, and of the poem's revolt, followed by Flores’ piece of writing. As a result, in our final considerations, we think about the potentials of mourning and testimony for the current political life, taking the Brazilian military dictatorship as a starting point for contemporary philosophical reflections and for literary practices.