NENHUMA FREIRA ME QUER DE QUANTAS TEM O DESTERRO: O AMOR FREIRÁTICO NAS SÁTIRAS DE GREGÓRIO DE MATOS (1679-1694)

Abstract

The theme of nun loving had an important presence in the baroque Lusitanian literature in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of Iberic practice and custom, the nun-lovers or galanes de monjas were men dedicated to fooling around with nuns. In the Portuguese America, the topic was addressed by the poet who later became the main representative of such theme: Gregório de Matos was a polemic figure of the 17th century, who traversed through the Portuguese-Brazilian territories and ventured into the sinuous ways of sexual relations with nuns by the lens of his persona. The involvement with the religious women of the Convent Odivelas, in Portugal, and later the Convent of Santa Clara do Desterro, in Bahia, are feats admitted by the author revealing the pleasure of profaning the sacred whilst conquering the love of a joyful freirinha, as the poet named the nuns of the clarissan convent in Bahia. His works reflected how the frigid wheels, drains and bars of these institutions where accomplices of deviant behaviors from nuns who, moved by their most intimate desires, had relations with both secular and clergy people. Even though having conversations with his muse was allowed, it was not enough. After obtaining her consent, a series of obstacles emerged to be overcome by the valiant warrior-lover, facing competitors, tantrums, betrayals, slander, the need for luxurious gifts and other challenges that the nuns proposed. Among the affairs listed by the poet, inarguably the most prolific for his poetries was the one dedicated to the nun Mariana do Sacramento.