Portuguese literature
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Portuguese literature is
An early example of Portuguese literature is the tradition of a medieval
The seventeenth century was marked by the introduction of the
The writers of the eighteenth century tried to counteract a certain decadence of the baroque stage by making an effort to recover the level of quality attained during the Golden Age, through the creation of academies and literary Arcadias - it was the time of Neoclassicism. In the nineteenth century, the neoclassical ideals were abandoned, where Almeida Garrett introduced Romanticism, followed by Alexandre Herculano and Camilo Castelo Branco.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Realism (of naturalistic features) developed in novel-writing, whose exponents included Eça de Queiroz and Ramalho Ortigão. Literary trends during the twentieth century are represented mainly by Fernando Pessoa, considered one of the greatest national poets together with Camões, and, in later years, by the development of prose fiction, thanks to authors such as António Lobo Antunes and José Saramago, winner of the Nobel prize for Literature.
Birth of a literary language
Verse
It has been argued (by great early scholars such as Henry Roseman Lang and
There was a late flowering during the reign of
By the middle of the 15th century troubadour verse was effectively dead, replaced by a limper form of court poetry, represented in the Cancioneiro Geral compiled in the 16th century by poet and humanist Garcia de Resende. Meanwhile, the people were elaborating a ballad poetry of their own, the body of which is known as the Romanceiro. It consists of lyrico-narrative poems treating of war, chivalry, adventure, religious legends, and the sea, many of which have great beauty and contain traces of the varied civilizations which have existed in the peninsula. When the Court poets had exhausted the artifices of Provençal lyricism, they imitated the poetry of the people, giving it a certain vogue which lasted until the Classical Renaissance. It was then thrust into the background, and though cultivated by a few, it remained unknown to men of letters until the nineteenth century, when Almeida Garrett began his literary revival and collected folk poems from the mouths of the peasantry.
Prose
Prose developed later than verse and first appeared in the 13th century in the shape of short chronicles, lives of saints, and genealogical treatises called Livros de Linhagens. In Portuguese
15th century
Prose
A new epoch in literature dates from the
Poetry
The introduction of
Early sixteenth century
Pastoral poetry
Portuguese pastoral poetry is more natural and sincere than that of the other nations because Ribeiro, the founder of the bucolic school, sought inspiration in the national serranilhas; however, his eclogues, despite beng rich in feeling and rhythmic harmony, are surpassed by the "Crisfal" of Cristóvão Falcão. These, as well as the eclogues and sententious "Cartas" of Sá de Miranda, are written in versos de arte mayor. The popular medida velha (as the national metre was afterwards called, to distinguish it from the Italian hendecasyllable), continued to be used by Camões in his so-called minor works, as also by Bandarra in his prophecies and Gil Vicente.
Drama
Though Gil Vicente did not originate dramatic representations, he is considered the father of the Portuguese stage. Of his forty-four pieces, fourteen are in Portuguese and eleven in Castilian; the remaining pieces are bilingual and consist of autos, that is, devotional works, tragicomedies, and farces. Beginning in 1502 with religious pieces, conspicuous among them being "Auto da Alma" and the famous trilogy of the "Barcas", he soon introduces the comic and satirical element to provide relief and achieve moral aims. By the close of his career in 1536, he had arrived at pure comedy, as found in "Inês Pereira" and the "Floresta de Enganos", besides developing the study of character. The plots are simple, the dialogue spirited, the lyrics often of finished beauty, and while Gil Vicente appeared too early to be a great dramatist, his plays mirror to perfection the types, customs, language, and daily life of all classes. The playwrights who followed him had neither superior talents nor court patronage and, facing attacks from the classical school for their lack of culture and from the Inquisition for their grossness, they were reduced to entertaining the lower classes at country fairs and festivals.
First classical phase: The Renaissance
The Renaissance produced a pleiad of distinguished poets, historians, critics, antiquaries, theologians, and moralists which made the sixteenth century a golden age.
Lyric and epic poetry
The classical plays
Sá de Miranda endeavoured also to reform the drama and, shaping himself on Italian models, wrote the "Estrangeiros". Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos had produced in "Eufrosina" the first prose play, but the comedies of Sá and António Ferreira are artificial and stillborn productions, though the latter's tragedy, "Inês de Castro", if dramatically weak, has something of Sophocles in the spirit and form of the verse.
Prose
The best prose work of the sixteenth century is devoted to history and travel. João de Barros in his "Decadas", continued by Diogo do Couto, described with mastery the deeds achieved by the Portuguese in the discovery and conquest of the lands and seas of the Orient. Damião de Góis, humanist and friend of Erasmus, wrote with rare independence on the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal. Bishop Osório treated of the same subject in Latin, but his interesting "Cartas" are in the vulgar tongue. Among others who dealt with the East are Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, António Galvão, Gaspar Correia, Bras de Albuquerque, Frei Gaspar da Cruz, and Frei João dos Santos. The chronicles of the kingdom were continued by Francisco de Andrade and Frei Bernardo da Cruz, and Miguel Leitão de Andrade compiled an interesting volume of "Miscellanea". The travel literature of the period is too large for detailed mention: Persia, Syria, Abyssinia, Florida, and Brazil were visited and described and Father Lucena compiled a classic life of St. Francis Xavier. The "Peregrination" of Fernão Mendes Pinto, a typical Conquistador, is worth all the story books put together for its extraordinary adventures told in a vigorous style, full of colour and life, while the "História trágico-marítima", a record of notable shipwrecks between 1552 and 1604, has good specimens of simple anonymous narrative. The dialogues of Samuel Usque, a Lisbon Jew, also deserve mention. Religious subjects were usually treated in Latin, but among moralists who used the vernacular were Frei Heitor Pinto, Bishop Arraez, and Frei Thome de Jesus, whose "Trabalhos de Jesus" has appeared in many languages.
Second classical phase: Baroque
The alleged inferiority of seventeenth-century literature to that of the preceding age has been blamed on the new royal absolutism, the
Lyric poetry
Melodious verses relieve the dullness of the pastoral romances of Rodrigues Lobo, while his "Corte na Aldea" is a book of varied interest in elegant prose. The versatile D. Francisco Manuel de Mello, in addition to his sonnets on moral subjects, wrote pleasing imitations of popular romances, but is at his best in a reasoned but vehement "Memorial to John IV", in the witty "Apologos Dialogaes", and in the homely philosophy of the "Carta de Guia de Casados", prose classics. Other poets of the period are Soror
Prose
The century had a richer output in prose than in verse, and history, biography, sermons, and epistolary correspondence all flourished. Writers on historical subjects were usually friars who worked in their cells and not, as in the sixteenth century, travelled men and eyewitnesses of the events they describe. They occupied themselves largely with questions of form and are better stylists than historians. Among the five contributors to the ponderous "Monarchia Lusitana", only the conscientious Frei António Brandão fully realized the importance of documentary evidence. Frei Bernardo de Brito begins his work with the creation and ends it where he should have begun; he constantly mistakes legend for fact, but was a patient investigator and vigorous narrator. Frei Luis de Sousa, the famous stylist, worked up existing materials into the classical hagiography "Vida de D. Frei Bartolomeu dos Mártires" and "Annaes d'el Rei D. João III. Manuel de Faria e Sousa, historian and arch-commentator of Camões, by a strange irony of fate chose Spanish as his vehicle, as did Mello for his classic account of the Catalan War, while Jacinto Freire de Andrade told in grandiloquent language the story of justice-loving viceroy, D. João de Castro.
Ecclesiastical eloquence was at its best in the seventeenth century and the pulpit filled the place of the press of to-day. The originality and imaginative power of his sermons are said to have won for Father António Vieira in Rome the title of "Prince of Catholic Orators" and though they and his letters exhibit some of the prevailing faults of taste, he is nonetheless great both in ideas and expression; perhaps most famous among his sermons is his 1654 Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Fish. The discourses and devotional treatises of the Oratorian Manuel Bernardes, who was a recluse, have a calm and sweetness that we miss in the writings of a man of action like Vieira and, while equally rich, are purer models of classic Portuguese prose. He is at his best in "Luz e Calor" and the "Nova Floresta". Letter writing is represented by such master hands as D. Francisco Manuel de Mello in familiar epistles, Frei António das Chagas in spiritual, and by five short but eloquent documents of human affection, the "Cartas de Mariana Alcoforado".
Third classical phase: Neo-classicism
Affectation continued to mark the literature of the first half of the eighteenth century, but signs of a change gradually appeared and ended in that complete literary reformation known as the Romantic Movement. Distinguished men who fled abroad to escape the prevailing despotism did much for intellectual progress by encouragement and example. Verney criticized the obsolete educational methods and exposed the literary and scientific decadence in the "Verdadeiro Methodo de Estudar", while the various Academies and Arcadias, wiser than their predecessors, worked for purity of style and diction, and translated the best foreign classics.
The Academies
The Academy of History, established by John V in 1720 in imitation of the French Academy, published fifteen volumes of learned "Memoirs" and laid the foundations for a critical study of the annals of Portugal, counted among its members being Caetano de Sousa, author of the voluminous "Historia da Casa Real", and the bibliographer Barbosa Machado. The
The Arcadians
Of these the most important was the Arcadia Ulisiponense, established in 1756 by the poet Cruz e Silva—"to form a school of good example in eloquence and poetry"—and it included the most celebrated writers of the time. Pedro Correia Garção composed the "Cantata de Dido", a classic gem, and many excellent sonnets, odes, and epistles. The bucolic verse of Quita has the tenderness and simplicity of that of Bernardin Ribeiro, while in the mock-heroic poem, "Hyssope", Cruz e Silva satirizes ecclesiastical jealousies, local types, and the prevailing gallomania with real humour. Intestine disputes led to the dissolution of the Arcadia in 1774, but it had done good service by raising the standards of taste and introducing new poetical forms. Unfortunately, its adherents were too apt to content themselves with imitating the ancient classics and the Quinhentistas and they adopted a cold, reasoned style of expression, without emotion or colouring. Their whole outlook was painfully academic. Many of the Arcadians followed the example of a latter-day Maecenas, the Conde de Ericeira, and endeavoured to nationalize the pseudo-classicism which obtained in France. In 1790 the "New Arcadia" came into being and had in Bocage a man who, under other conditions, might have been a great poet. His talent led him to react against the general mediocrity and though he achieved no sustained flights, his sonnets vie with those of Camoens. He was a master of short improvised lyrics as of satire, which he used to effect in the "Pena de Talião" against Agostinho de Macedo.
This turbulent priest constituted himself a literary dictator and in "Os Burros" surpassed all other bards in invective, moreover he sought to supplant the Lusiads by a tasteless epic, "Oriente". He, however, introduced the didactic poem, his odes reach a high level, and his letters and political pamphlets display learning and versatility, but his influence on letters was hurtful. The only other Arcadian worthy of mention is Curvo Semedo, but the "Dissidents", a name given to those poets who remained outside the Arcadias, include three men who show independence and a sense of reality, José Anastácio da Cunha, Nicolão Tolentino, and Francisco Manuel de Nascimento, better known as Filinto Elysio. The first versified in a philosophic and tender strain, the second sketched the custom and follies of the time in quintilhas of abundant wit and realism, the third spent a long life of exile in Paris in reviving the cult of the sixteenth-century poets, purified the language of Gallicisms and enriched it by numerous works, original and translated. Though lacking imagination, his contos, or scenes of Portuguese life, strike a new note of reality, and his blank verse translation of the "Martyrs" of Chateaubriand is a high performance. Shortly before his death he became a convert to the Romantic Movement, for whose triumph in the person of Almeida Garrett he had prepared the way.
Brazilian poetry
During the eighteenth century the colony of Brazil began to contribute to Portuguese letters. Manuel da Costa wrote a number of Petrarchian sonnets, Manuel Inácio da Silva Alvarenga showed himself an ardent lyricist and cultivator of form, Tomás António Gonzaga became famous by the harmonious verses of his love poem "Marília de Dirceu", while the "Poesias sacras" of António Pereira Sousa Caldas have a certain mystical charm though metrically hard. In epic poetry the chief name is that of Basílio da Gama, whose "O Uraguai" deals with the struggle between the Portuguese and the Paraguay Indians. It is written in blank verse and has some notable episodes. The "Caramuru" of Santa Rita Durão begins with the discovery of Bahia and contains, in a succession of pictures, the early history of Brazil. The passages descriptive of native customs are well written and these poems are superior to anything of the kind produced contemporaneously by the mother country.
Prose
The prose of the century is mainly dedicated to scientific subjects, but the letters of António da Costa, António Ribeiro Sanches, and Alexandre de Gusmão have literary value and those of the celebrated Carvalheiro d'Oliveira, even if not very accurate, are even more informative.
Drama
Though a Court returned to Lisbon in 1640, it preferred, for one hundred and fifty years, Italian opera and French plays to vernacular representations. Early in the eighteenth century several authors sprung from the people vainly attempted to found a national drama. Their pieces mostly belong to low comedy. The "Operas Portuguezas" of António José da Silva, produced between 1733 and 1741, have a real comic strength and a certain originality, and, like those of Nicolau Luiz, exploit with wit the faults and foibles of the age. The latter divided his attention between heroic comedies and comedies de capa y espada and, though wanting in ideas and taste, they enjoyed a long popularity. At the same time the Arcadia endeavoured to raise the standard of the stage, drawing inspiration from the contemporary French drama, but its members lacked dramatic talent and achieved little. Garção wrote two bright comedies, Quita some stillborn tragedies, and Manuel de Figueredo compiled plays in prose and verse on national subjects, which fill thirteen volumes, but he could not create characters.
Romanticism and realism
Poetry
The early nineteenth century witnessed a literary reformation which was begun by Almeida Garrett who had become acquainted with the English and French Romanticism in exile and based his work on the national traditions. In the narrative poem "Camões" (1825) he broke with the established rules of composition and followed it with "Flores sem Fruto" and a collection of ardent love poems "Folhas Caídas", while the clear elegant prose of this true artist is seen in a miscellany of romance and criticism, "Viagens na minha terra".
The poetry of the austere
In 1865 some young poets led by Antero de Quental, and future president Teófilo Braga, rebelled against the domination over letters which Castilho had assumed, and, under foreign influences, proclaimed the alliance of philosophy with poetry. A fierce pamphlet war heralded the downfall of Castilho and poetry gained in breadth and reality, though in many instances it became non-Christian and revolutionary.
Quental produced finely wrought, pessimistic sonnets inspired by neo-
Other true poets are the sonneteer
Drama
After producing some classical tragedies, the best of which is "Cato",
Novel
The novel is really a creation of the nineteenth century and it began with historical romances in the style of
.Other prose
History became a science with
Examples of Portuguese literature
Luís Vaz de Camões
The poet
The Portuguese national holiday, "Portugal Day" or "Dia de Portugal, das Comunidades Portuguesas e de Camões" (Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities), is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of Camões' death. It is a day of national pride similar to the "Independence Day" celebrated in other countries.
Eça de Queirós
In 2002, the Mexican director
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was a Portuguese poet and prose writer. He used heteronyms, which allowed him to write in different styles not usually available to a poet. One of his most famous works was the epic-lyric poem "Mensagem" (Message).
Message discusses
Antero de Quental
This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (December 2009) |
Antero de Quental studied at the University of Coimbra, and soon distinguished himself by unusual talent, as well as turbulence and eccentricity. He began to write poetry at an early age primarily, though not entirely, devoting himself to the sonnet. After the publication of one volume of verse, he entered with great warmth into the revolt of the young men which dethroned António Feliciano de Castilho, the chief living poet of the elder generation, from his place as dictator over modern Portuguese literature. He then travelled, engaged on his return in political and socialistic agitations, and found his way through a series of disappointments to the mild pessimism, a kind of Western Buddhism, which animates his latest poetical productions. His melancholy was increased by a spinal disease, which after several years of retirement from the world drove him to suicide on his native island.
Antero stands at the head of modern Portuguese poetry after João de Deus. His principal defect is monotony: his own self is his solitary theme, and he seldom attempts any other form of composition than the sonnet. On the other hand, few poets who have primarily devoted themselves to this form have produced so large a proportion of really exquisite work. The comparatively few pieces in which be either forgets his doubts and inward conflicts, or succeeds in giving them an objective form, are among the most beautiful in any literature. The purely introspective sonnets are less attractive, but equally finely wrought, interesting as psychological studies, and impressive from their sincerity. His mental attitude is well described by himself as the effect of Germanism on the unprepared mind of a Southerner. He had learned much, and half-learned more, which he was unable to assimilate, and his mind became a chaos of conflicting ideas, settling down into a condition of gloomy negation, save for the one conviction of the vanity of existence, which ultimately destroyed him. A healthy participation in public affairs might have saved him, but he seemed incapable of entering upon any course that did not lead to delusion and disappointment. The great popularity acquired, notwithstanding, by poetry so metaphysical and egotistic is a testimony to the artistic instinct of the Portuguese.
As a prose writer Quental displayed high talents, though he wrote little. His most important prose work is the Considerações sobre a philosophia da historia literaria Portugueza, but he earned fame by his pamphlets on the Coimbra question, Bom senso e bom gosto, a letter to Castilho, and A dignidade das lettras e litteraturas officiaes.
His friend Oliveira Martins edited the Sonnets (Porto, 1886), supplying an introductory essay; and an interesting collection of studies on the poet by the leading Portuguese writers appeared in a volume entitled Anthero de Quental. In Memoriam (Oporto, 1896). The sonnets have been turned into most European languages; into English by Edgar Prestage (Anthero de Quental, Sixty-four Sonnets, London, 1894), together with a striking autobiographical letter addressed by Quental to his German translator, Dr Storck.
Alexandre O'Neill
Alexandre Manuel Vahía de Castro O’Neill (December 19, 1924 - August 21, 1986) was a Portuguese poet of Irish origin.
In 1948, O'Neill was among the founders of the Lisbon Surrealist Movement, along with Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos, José-Augusto França and others. His writings soon diverged from surrealist to form an original style whose poetry reflects a love/hate relationship with his country.
His most salient characteristics– a disrespect of conventions, both social and literary, an attitude of permanent revolt, playfulness with language, and the use of parody and black humor – are used to form a body of incisive depictions of what it is to be Portuguese and throw light on his relation with the country.
O’Neill was in permanent conflict with Portugal. While other contemporaries wrote poems that protested against national life under Salazar, O’Neill's attack ran deeper. Poems such as ‘Standing at Fearful Attention’ and ‘Portugal’ suggested that the dictatorial regime was a symptom (the worst symptom) of graver ills– lack of courage and smallness of vision– woven into the nation's psyche. Other poems, such as ‘Lament of the Man Who Misses Being Blind’, seemed to hold religion and mysticism responsible for an obscurantism that made change difficult, if not impossible.
A publicist by profession, he is famous for inventing some of the most ingenious advertising slogans of his time, O’Neill was unusually adept at manipulating words and using them in an efficacious manner, but he refused to put that talent at the service of a lyrically lofty, feel-good sort of poetry (see ‘Simply Expressive’). Stridently anti-Romantic, and concerned about keeping humanity in its place as just one of earth's species, he did not believe that an especially harmonious world was possible, and he abhorred all attempts to escape the world, whether through mystical or poetical exaltations. His one hope, or consolation, explicitly stated in ‘St. Francis’s Empty Sandal’, was in the connection (never entirely peaceful) he felt with other members of the species.
Although most of his works are lost or confined to private collections, he was also a painter and a graphic composer of immense talent. Some of his work was shown, to great surprise and admiration, in 2002 at an exhibit on the surrealist movement.
José Saramago
See also
- Angolan literature
- Brazilian literature
- Latin American literature
- List of Portuguese novelists
- List of Portuguese writers
- List of Brazilian writers
- Portuguese language
- Portuguese poetry
- Media of Portugal
References
- ^ "Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas - FCSH, todas as cantigas medievais dos cancioneiros galego-portugueses".
- ^ "The Lusiads". World Digital Library. 1800–1882. Retrieved 2013-08-31.
Further reading
- Parkinson, Stephen, Cláudia Pazos Alonso, and T. F. Earle, eds. A Companion to Portuguese Literature. Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2009.
- ———— (2011-01-08). Chronology of Portuguese Literature 1128–2000. .
External links
- Projecto Vercial A big Portuguese literature database.
- Portugueses de Papel A bilingual database of Portuguese characters in Brazilian novels.