Masochistic Ritual and Rebirth in Fern o Mendes Pinto’s Peregrina o

The present study examines the ontogenetically productive role of humiliation and violence within Fern o Mendes Pinto’s (1509?-1583) Peregrina o, a canonical work of the Portuguese Renaissance. Explicitly adapting Gilles Deleuze’s reading of the work of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Coldness and Cruelty) to the Peregrina o, this study engages in a focused analysis of masochistic rituals encoded within Mendes Pinto’s narrative. Focusing on two specific episodes in the text, both of them ritual murders – one carried out by Portuguese captains in the Red Sea and another by Southeast Asians in the Kingdom of Pegu – this study explores the ways in which the Peregrina o employs the logic of the masochistic contract, and the rituals that sustain it, in strategic ways.