Empowerment for Ladies: readings of Milady of Myself by Maria Teresa Horta and Milady of What? by Ana Luísa Amaral

Abstract

The reunion with the “self”, the “dressing up” of self, in an innermost representation of the “feminine/female soul”, bringing some aspects of everyday-life as important references, allows Maria Teresa Horta and Ana Luísa Amaral to construct poetry in which the feminine lyrical self takes not only possession of what she observes, but also the power to make decisions about her life, as “lady” and “owner” of herself, in a speech free of patriarchal oppression. In this article we will analyze how various “ladies” are built in these two works, underlining that Minha Senhora de Mim is configured as a milestone of Portuguese poetry by women, opening a rift to restore possession of the speech (and of the body) to women without sociocultural impediments that might limit the work of the woman writer; and how Ana Luísa Amaral, paraphrasing Maria Teresa Horta in an obvious homage in Minha Senhora de Quê builds a work with its own identity within a different feminist perspective.