Um toque de voyeurismo: o diário íntimo de Couto de Magalhães (1880-1887)

Abstract

This work intends to analyze the intimate diary of José Vieira Couto de Magalhães, wellknown Brazilian politician and scholar from the second half of the 19th century, as an ethnographic registration which informs about top issues of that time and simultaneously stresses the efforts of an individual in order to build a coherent personality, although the diary presents itself rather incomplete. By conceiving a private diary as a cultural practice of shaping oneself’s personality, it is discussed the effect of truth present in this kind of writing and the implications of its usage in the Social Sciences. The most manifest themes along the diary are discussed: body, health and disease. As a writer about himself, Couto de Magalhães, highlights concern about body education and activities practiced by his contemporary fellow men. Since he was interested on the ideal of hygienic and bourgeois family, typical in the 19th century, it is evoked themes like homosexuality, dreams, marriage and medicine. The diary shows the author’s awareness related to the search of balance between body and mind, in order to allow him reach his ideal of self-control, besides the attempt to develop and forecast a self-image to the future.