Abstract
This article discusses how Lima Barreto constructed a politics of the senses, that is, how he reflected on the theme of the body in space in the novel Numa e a Ninfa, although other manuscripts by the author are mobilized for the articulation of the theme. The reports produced by the man from Rio de Janeiro about the parliamentary space allow us to understand how the corporeity of an era - the Rio de Janeiro of the First Republic - gains visibility and sayability in its fortune. Thus, this article points out that Barret’s political criticism, generally located by researchers of his work in the discussion of ethics and the commitment of the aediles with public affairs, allows reflection on the theater of emotions and gestures of the rulers. The gaze and oral expressiveness of the congressmen are evaluated in this article as a way of checking the functioning of the politics of the senses, intended in Barreto’s narratives to deal with the bodies of men and women in and through space. As a result, it was evaluated that the study of expressiveness developed by Barreto, in addition to being a way of seeing the world, translates perceptions that the body is a product of culture that can be modulated by space.
Keywords:
Body; Space; Politics