May 68, consumption society and AIDS pandemic: the impact of three upheavals on the representation of Eros in European literature

This thesis is a study about the evolutions and the metamorphosis of Eros’s concept in European literature (Italy, France and Portugal) during three key-moments of XX century's second half: May 68, the apogee of the consumptions society and the AIDS crisis. Our work is divided in three parts, one for each of those historical moments. The first part is a confrontation between novels written before and after the events of May 68: La noia (1960) by Alberto Moravia, Les belles images (1966) and La femme rompue (1967) by Simone de Beauvoir, Teorema (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini and finally La vita interiore (1978)by Moravia again. During this period is coming out a subversive and potentially revolutionary image of Eros. The second part is about novels published between 1979 and 1986. In the middle of the Eastern consumption's euphoria are coming out novels representing two types of Eros that are totally opposed: first of all the materialist and individualist one, in perfect syntony with the social Darwinism of this era; in the second place we can observe an unexpected come back of an Eros that remember us courtly love, but a revisited courtly love, adapted at ours modern times. The third part, which can bee see as a closing of this cycle, introduces a group of novels that are part of the "AIDS literature". Through Lúnario (1986) by Al Berto, Camere separate (1989) by Pier Vittorio Tondelli and the AIDS trilogy by Hervé Guibert, we'll focus on the darkest period of Eros and on his latest literary metamorphosis until now. Our conclusion will focus on the artificiality of literary borders and the need to internationalize European literature, our work showing a huge number of similarities between novels coming from linguistic and cultural areas really different between them.