Pornografia e transgressão na obra literária de Henry Miller

Abstract

The North American writer Henry Miller was marginalized by literary critics since the first publications of his works in the 40s. Accused of being a pornographic text, the book Tropic of Cancer (1934) was forbidden in many countries. This article aims to analyze the obscene in Henry Miller’s work to prove that, beyond the erotic intention, Miller’s books are an expression of freedom and rejection of moral standards. In order to achieve our goal, we will use as theoretical basis the articles Criticismo e sexualidade: uma leitura de Tropico of Capricorn de Henry Miller, by Flávia Andréa Rodrigues Benfatt, and Literatura marginal americana: do épico confessional ao niilismo erótico, by Lainister de Oliveira. The texts mentioned above grant us the argumentation necessary to the analysis of pornographic discourse in Henry Miller’s literary works as the author’s aesthetics choice of taking himself as a transgressor in a decadent society.