Maria Angélica Ribeiro: uma dramaturga singular no Brasil do século XIX

Abstract

This article focuses upon the life and work of the first female Brazilian playwright, Maria Angélica Ribeiro (1829-1880). The analysis of one of her plays allows us to reflect uppon two relevant aspects of social and artistic research: 1. the significant feminine participation - at a professional level - in a patriarchal society; 2. the profile of a period of the brazilian society and the analysis of a theme that is taboo: the social and sexual domination of the white man over the black female slave, an issue that up until then had always been studied from a male perspective. After Maria Angélica Ribeiro, this issue started being approached from a female perspective in dramatic literature, wwhich resulted in the use of the sexual order as a means of denouncing the social order.