A poética da subjetividade: notas sobre o laboratório de Gonçalo M. Tavares

The main goal of this chapter is to analyze the processes of subjectivity constitution in the works of Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, especially in his Atlas do Corpo e da Imaginação [Atlas of the Body and the Imagination] (Tavares, 2013b). In its first section, the chapter presents Tavares’ method as a method of surprise that wagers on the importance of the imagination and on the plasticity of concepts and nar‑ ratives to put forward its literary creation. It also identifies the implicit philosophy at work in his writings as being a radical perspectivism grounded in a relational and combina‑ tory ontology. In its second part it presents Tavares’ poetics of literary subjectivation and the importance of narrative techniques to the construction of some of the characters that appear in his works, while also showing how these works intrinsically reflect the search for an existential orientation and try to provide some indications for it. In its last section, the chapter delves on the relation between the poetics of subjectivity and the topic of personal identities and it analyzes Tavares’ standpoint from the perspective of the narrative identity hypothesis. Finally, the chapter concludes that Tavares acknowledges the importance of narrative techniques and of the topic personal identity. He does not negate the existence of subjectivity but his works ultimately wager above all in transformation through imagination, and put forward examples that are most of all geared towards discontinuity, the multi‑ plication of stories, fragmentation, diversity, movement and change.