PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

Literature of Portugal, written in Portuguese and other languages. It is noted for the sweetness of its lyrical verse and the biting wit of its satirical prose. Portuguese literature may be divided into four periods: 1200 to 1415, the age of the troubadours; 1415 to 1580, the humanistic flowering, rivaling that of Castile; 1580 to 1820, a time of stagnation; and 1820 to the present, the romantic revival. Until the 14th century, Portuguese literature was a regional variety of that of the Iberian Peninsula, composed in the language of northwestern Spain by Galicians, Portuguese, and Castilians alike; down to the 17th century many Portuguese also wrote in Castilian. Thus, the Portuguese claim authorship of AMADIS OF GAUL, (q.v.; 1508; trans. 1567), the greatest Spanish novel of chivalry.

Age of the Troubadours.

Courtly troubadour poetry in Portugal began in the 13th century with the reign of Alfonso III and reached its height during the reign of his son Diniz, an excellent troubadour himself. A few authors stand out in the 13th century; the priests Airas Nunes (fl. about 1250–1300) and Joan Airas de Santiago (fl. about 1250–85), João Garcia de Guilhade (fl. about 1250–90), and the jogral (professional musician) Martin Codax (fl. about 1220). The songs of the troubadours were of three types: cantigas de amor, or plaintive love songs; cantigas de amigo, or songs about suitors, put into the mouths of women in delightful native forms still alive in oral folk tradition; and cantigas de escarnho e de mal dizer, or mocking and slanderous songs. More than 2000 songs of the troubadours survive. They are gathered in three cancioneiros, or songbooks, and a fourth book of a different character, containing legends in praise of the Virgin Mary by King Alfonso X of León and Castile. Portuguese prose of the 13th and 14th centuries consists of livros de linhagens (anecdotal registers of noble lineages); chronicles; saints’ lives and other edifying literature translated from the Latin; and adaptations of the Arthurian romances about the knights of the Round Table.

Early Renaissance.

In the late 15th century a second era of Portuguese cultural flowering began, resulting in part from overseas expansion around Africa and the accompanying growth of the Atlantic port cities. The curiosity about human nature that was characteristic of the Renaissance led to more worldly writing, although there occurred no radical break with the doctrines of the medieval church or with the troubadours. Classic and Italian influences, a greater variety of forms, and excitement over widening horizons characterize the best poetry in the Cancioneiro geral (General Songbook, 1516), compiled by Garcia de Resende (1470–1536) and encompassing the work of 300 poets. Four of these poets won renown: Resende himself for treating in verse one of the great romantic themes of European literature, the murder of the royal paramour Inés de Castro; Gil Vicente, who founded the Portuguese theater with the fine plays he wrote and performed for the royal court from 1502 on; Bernardim Ribeiro (1482–1552), the author of hauntingly melancholy poetry and Livro dos saudades (Book of Longings, 1554–57)—also known by its opening words, Menina e moça (Child and Maiden)—a sentimental novel combining pastoral and chivalrous features; and Francisco de Sá de Miranda (1481–1558), who, after a sojourn in Italy, revolutionized Portuguese poetry through the introduction of Italian meters. Vicente, the greatest of these four poets, excelled in such different veins as the spiritual Barca do Inferno (1516; Ship of Hell, 1929); the romantic, in Amadís de Gaula (c. 1523); and the farcical, in Auto da Índia (Play of India, c. 1509). His works are peopled by the whole range of Portuguese society, from Gypsies and black slaves to prelates and princes, seen through the sympathetic eyes of a truly Christian humanist who, serious and gay in turns, sprinkles his scenes generously with songs inspired by the folk poetry of his country.

Golden Age of Literature.

In the next generation, improving on the innovations of Sá de Miranda, António Ferreira (1528–69) wrote Ignez de Castro (c. 1557; trans. 1825), a verse tragedy with a Greek chorus, and Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos (1515–85) wrote several prose comedies of manners, among them Eufrósina (1555), a moralized counterpart to the Spanish novel La Celestina. Prose fiction progressed little. Novels of chivalry remained in fashion, among them the verse and prose romance Lusitania transformada (Lusitania Transformed, 1595), by Fernão Álvares do Oriente (1540–95). Moral tales were written by Gonçalo Fernandes Trancoso (1515?–96?). In the 16th century, writers produced numerous moral or religious treatises, mostly in the humanistic form of dialogues, such as Imagem da vida cristã (Image of the Christian Life, 1563 and 1572), by Heitor Pinto (1528–83?); the impassioned Consolação às tribulações de Israel (Consolation of Israel in its Tribulations, 1553), by the Portuguese Jewish writer Samuel Usque (1500?–60?); and a critique of colonial practices, Soldado prático (The Experienced Soldier, 1590), by Diogo do Couto (1542–1616).

Couto is best known as one in the series of splendid historians who grandly chronicled the rise and decline of the Portuguese Empire beginning with Gomes Eanes de Azurara (c. 1410–74), who wrote on the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator. The peak was reached with João de Barros (c. 1496–1570) who, following the classical model of the Roman historian Livy, began an ambitious history of the overseas conquests in his Décadas da Ásia (Decades of Asia, 1552–1615). Couto continued the chronicle, and between them they covered the history and geography of the 16th century. Other historians were the cosmopolitan humanist Damião de Góis (1502–74), who chronicled the reign of King Emanuel and Gaspar Correia (1495–1561), who poured his experiences as secretary to Afonso de Albuquerque, the conqueror of Goa and Malacca, into the minutely detailed, vivid Lendas da Índia (Indian Memoranda, 1858–66). The prose works of this era that are the richest in exotic, dramatic, and picaresque scenes are the travel books. These include factual accounts of the discovery of the seaway to India in 1497–98 by Álvaro Velho (fl. 1497–1507), published in 1838, and of the coast of Brazil in 1500 by Pero Vaz de Caminha (fl. 1494–1501), published in 1817; a series of shipwreck stories collected in the 18th century as The Tragic History of the Sea (1735–36; trans. 1959 and 1967); and the adventures of Fernão Mendes Pinto (c. 1510–83) in the Far East as a trader, pirate, and slave, fictionalized in the posthumously published Peregrinação (Wanderings, 1614).

Camões and the Decline of the Golden Age.

The high adventure and decline of the Golden Age in Portugal, along with its ideals of the gentleman, the Christian, and the lover, are summed up in the active life and literary works of the greatest writer of Portugal, the poet Luís de Camões. As a poor young nobleman he tried his luck first at court, then overseas in Africa and Asia. He returned home penniless and broken in health, but with one imperishable treasure, his national poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads, or sons of Lusus, that is, the Portuguese, 1572). It is perhaps the best of all Renaissance epics, praising the Portuguese leaders of the past and, by implication, the entire small but undaunted nation. Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India provided the theme, which the poet heightened with the inclusion of ancient mythology. The work culminates in a timeless apotheosis of the human mind as conqueror over nature. Camões also excelled as a lyric poet (Poems, 1595; trans. 1803); his sonnets and canzones make him the rival of the 14th-century Italian Petrarch as a subtle philosophical poet. In the sweetest, purest language Camões wrote of ideal love and the absurdity of human fortunes. He also wrote a number of plays that deal with classic themes.

Camões overshadowed many worthy poets of his time and of the next two generations, among them Diogo Bernardes (1530–1605) and his brother Agostinho da Cruz (1540–1619), both of whom wrote of God revealed in the idyllic green countryside of Portugal, and Francisco Rodrigues Lobo (1580–1622), who also treated pastoral themes.

Camões inspired Portuguese writers for centuries. He sustained the national spirit during the era of stagnation when Portugal’s exploitation by Castile and the ensuing struggles of the Portuguese to regain and maintain independence were offset only by the prosperity of one great colony, Brazil. Even so, this third era produced several remarkable writers. Manuel de Faria e Sousa (1590–1649) was a poet, historian, and literary critic, whose commentary (1639) on Os Lusíadas was a monumental labor of love and erudition. Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608–66) had the same talents, as well as experience in his positions and a clever wit that did not fail him in jail or exile. The wit shines brightly in his best poems, his letters to friends, and his four Apólogos dialogais (1721), dialogues on current topics. The other masters of baroque conceits were two clerics: Antonio das Chagas (1631–82), a soldier turned friar; and the internationally known Jesuit preacher António Vieira (1608–97), whose sermons, filling 15 volumes (1679–1748), are unique for imaginative power, ingeniousness, bold prophetic criticism, and enlightened patriotism.

18th Century.

In the 18th century, in the name of “good taste,” Franco-Italian classical academic regularity vanquished baroque exuberance. Poetic inspiration, thus repressed, found a precarious refuge in Brazil, and in its place didactic literature abounded. The Verdadeiro método de estudar (True Method of Study, 1746) of Luís António Verney (1713–92), an anti-Scholastic, anti-Jesuitic treatise on education, led to reforms typical of the Age of Enlightenment. In a lighter vein, António José da Silva (1705–39) produced burlesque puppet plays, and Francisco Xavier de Oliveira (1702–83), who fled to England, became the first Portuguese essayist with his chatty Cartas familiares (Letters to Friends, 1741–42). The romantic period was foreshadowed in the autobiographical and philosophical sonnets Rimas (Rhymes, 1791–99), which were written by a reckless bohemian, Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage (1765–1804), who spent his talent on improvisations and obscenities.

19th Century.

The fourth era, that of the nationalist awakening, has yet to run its course. Portuguese nationalism grew out of French revolutionary ideology and the Napoleonic invasions of the Iberian Peninsula in the first quarter of the 19th century. Such young middle-class intellectuals as João Baptista da Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano (1810–77) spent years of exile in France and England, where they imbibed romantic notions of liberty and nationalism at firsthand. Back in Portugal, Almeida Garrett undertook the revival of the national stage with historical dramas, such as Brother Luiz de Sousa (1844; trans. 1909). He met with more success as a poet, transmuting his loves into verse, romanticizing the misfortunes of genius in a long poem on Camões, or reworking Portuguese folk ballads. In Viagens na minha terra (Journeys in My Native Land, 1846) he created a whimsical tale mixing romance with satire and autobiography, written in a refreshingly conversational style. Herculano made his reputation as a historian of medieval Portugal, but he also created historical fiction, including a novel about the Visigoths and Moors, Eurico, o presbítero (Euric the Presbyter, 1844), into which he introduced the issue of priestly celibacy.

Portuguese romanticism did not tend to extremes but was combined with neoclassical precepts. Thus, two “romantics” came to be considered models of pure Portuguese style: the blind poet António Feliciano de Castilho (1800–75) and his talented disciple Camilo Castelo Branco, who was more romantic in his living than in his writing. Castelo Branco created a gallery of country and small-town types from northern Portugal in stories and novels of manners, including Amor de perdição (Love of Perdition, 1862) and Contos do Minho (Tales from the Minho Province, 1875–76). Castilho was displaced in 1865 by a group of bright university students, in the name of “modern ideas:” German philosophies, French socialism, science, and realistic art. The most gifted (and the unhappiest) of the group was a poet from the Azores, Antero Tarquínio de Quental, who wrote philosophical sonnets alternating between high hopes for human progress and utter despondency (Os sonetos completos, 1886). Others in the group included the first Portuguese literary historian in the modern sense, Teófilo Braga (1843–1924); a brilliant cultural historian and economist, Joaquim Oliveira Martins (1845–94); the foremost social poet, Guerra Junqueiro (1850–1923), and the best writer of realistic fiction, José Maria de Eça de Queirós. Eça de Queirós showed himself to be a mocking genius and a master of subtle artistic prose in such novels as A relíquia (1887; The Relic, 1925).

During the final quarter of the 19th century, these artists outshone a host of younger talents, among them the symbolist poets Camilo Pessanha (1867–1926), steeped in Chinese culture (Clepsidra, 1922); Eugénio de Castro (1869–1944), author of Oaristos (1890); and António Nobre (1867–1903). Nobre’s single volume, Só (Alone, 1892), highlighted a return to the sentimental nationalism of Almeida Garrett, romanticizing the “folk,” but, unlike Almeida Garrett, opposing any change. Prominent among traditionalists were António Correia de Oliveira (1879–1960), the popular versifier of A minha terra (My Land, 1915–17), and, towering above all poets since Almeida Garrett, Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), intensely national but also anti-Roman Catholic and ironic, sophisticated, and mystical. He wrote under various names to express dramatically the conflicting personalities within his complicated soul. Only after he had drunk himself to death were his poems and literary essays widely read and acclaimed; typical of his writing is Ode triunfal (Triumphal Ode, 1914). Although Pessoa participated in the futurist movement, known as modernismo in Portugal, he remained a solitary figure. Unlike him, most intellectuals came to the defense of the democratic institutions, working in vain for reforms against the professional politicians. The leaders among these intellectuals were Aquilino Ribeiro (1885–1960), a novelist who created such true country tales as the roguish Malhadinhas (Little Corrals, 1922); the pantheistic poet Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877–1952); the patriotic poet-historian Jaime Cortesão (1884–1960); and the essayist António Sérgio (1883–1969), a foe of nationalistic myths. The dramatist and poet Júlio Dantas (1876–1962) became known for his wit and sense of atmosphere, especially in his most noted play, A ceia dos cardeais (The Bishop’s Supper, 1907).

20th Century.

A second generation continued the struggle for reform after the collapse of the republic in 1926: the poet Miguel Torga (1907– ), author of a prose and verse Diário (Diary, after 1941), a unique commentary on current events, Portugal, the Portuguese, and his own psyche; the storywriter Irene Lisboa (1892–1958), a masterful observer of pathetic, obscure lives; Ferreira de Castro (1898–1974), made famous by his novel The Jungle (1930; trans. 1930), about a Portuguese emigrant to Brazil; and the subtle psychologist José Rodrigues Miguéis (1901–80), author of A escola do paraíso (School of Paradise, 1960), a novel evoking the Lisbon of 1910.

These writers were joined by many who reacted against the introspective craftsmanship stressed by José Régio (1901–69) and José Gaspar Simões (1903– ), editors of Presença (Presence, 1927–40). The writers of this group engaged in social realism, or neorealismo. This movement led to experimentation with new narrative techniques, particularly by the existentialist Vergílio Ferreira (1916–96), author of the novel Alegria breve (Short-Lived Joy, 1965), and José Cardoso Pires (1925– ), who wrote the novel O hóspede de Job (Job’s Guest, 1963).

Neorealismo, together with writings from the northeast of Brazil, a region that has climatic and social similarities to Africa, encouraged a literary upsurge in Portuguese territories in Africa. This produced the regional and social fiction of the Cape Verdeans Baltasar Lopes (1904–89) and Manuel Lopes (1907– ); fiction on the relations between blacks and whites in Angola, in such works as Terra morta (Dead Land, 1949), by Castro Soromenho (1910–68); and such lyric, increasingly militant poems as those of Francisco José Tenreiro (1921–63), from São Tomé, the first Portuguese writer to espouse pride in African blackness.

Surrealist and concretist experimentation brought to the fore such Portuguese poets as Jorge de Sena (1919–78), master of association of ideas and images in both prose (Andanças do demónio; The Demon Abroad, 1960 and 1967) and verse (Metamorfoses, 1963). To a lesser extent than in poetry, new viewpoints are revitalizing Portuguese fiction, not only through such foreign ideas as existentialism and structuralism but also through the emancipation of women, who make up half the literate population. Modern Portuguese women writers include Agustina Bessa-Luís (1922– ), who traced the incommunicability and psychological complexity of middle-class women in such novels as A sibila (The Sibyl, 1953); and poets such as the liberty-loving Sophia DeMello Breyner Andresen (1919– ). In 1972 Maria Isabel Barreno (1939– ), Maria Teresa Horta (1937– ), and Maria Velho da Costa collaborated to produce a volume of essays, stories, and poetry, Novas Cartas Portuguesas (1971; The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters, 1975). The work was inspired by a 17th-century classic, passionate love letters attributed to a Portuguese nun, Marianna Alcaforado (1640–1723). First published as Lettres Portugaises (1669) in French, they were issued in Portuguese in 1819 and translated into English as Letters from a Portuguese Nun in 1893. Because of its feminist content, and some erotic passages, The Three Marias was banned and the authors were put on trial, occasioning much international protest. When the new Portuguese revolutionary government took over in 1974, the authors were pardoned and the book released.

Hampered by the lack of support, modern Portuguese drama is confined mainly to amateur circles. One of the playwrights to come to wider attention, however, is Bernardo Santareno (1924– ), who works psychological overtones into analyses of broader national problems—as in O inferno (1968).

José Saramago, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in literature, is the first Portuguese writer to be awarded the prize. His more than 30 writings—novels, dramas, poetry—include Baltasar and Blimunda (1982; trans. 1987), a satire set in the 18th century.