Portugal Literature From the 20th Century to Today
From the beginning of the 20th century to the 1980s
According to indexdotcom, the generation linked to the Orpheu magazine (1915) marks the conclusion of the symbolist experience and the beginning of modernism, represented by F. Pessoa, M. de Sá-Carneiro and J. de Almada Negreiros. With the group linked to the magazine Presença (1927), founded and directed by AJ Branquinho da Fonseca, J. Gaspar Simões and J. Régio, modernism, opposing all sorts of academism, is oriented towards the exploration of the psyche and intuition individuals, spreading European literature widely and advocating free, subjective and impressionist criticism. Among the exponents of this trend stand out A. Botto, Portugal Homem de Melo, M. Torga, A. Casais Monteiro and C. Queirós. As a reaction to the pre-encoremovementthe group of poets linked to the magazine Novo cancioneiro arose in 1941 which, moved by the discovery of North American fiction, inaugurated a poem of a social nature and of a neorealist tendency (J. Gomes Ferreira; A. Rodrigues ; T. Kim; M. Dionísio; F. Gonçalves Namora; S. Muralha; CA Serra de Oliveira). In the same years the magazine Cadernos de poesia (1940) was also established, promoting a purified and hermetic lyric mainly linked to the names of R. Cinatti, J. de Sena, S. de Mello Breyner Andresen, E. de Andrade, A. O’Neill. Neorealist fiction has its most significant representatives in I. Lisboa, J. Rodrigues Miguéis, TX de Figueiredo, J. Paço d’Arcos, A. Alves Redol. As a reaction to social realism, the nucleus of poets of the Redonda Table (D. Mourão-Ferreira; M. Cesariny de Vasconcelos; AM Couto de Viana; L. de Macedo; A. de Lacerda) was formed around the 1950s. it is «the recovery of lyricism as the first stage of poetic creation». Experimentalism followed in the 1960s and Brazilian concretism in the 1960s and 1980s, along with currents influenced by psychoanalysis and semiotics. Even in fiction, the second half of the century is marked by a reaction to neorealism, at times influenced by surrealism, at other times with a clear existentialist imprint.
From the end of the 20th century at the beginning of the 21st
At the end of the 20th century. the writers, relying on their own existential experiences, on the one hand dug into the history of their homeland to reflect their image of the present, on the other hand they made memory the instrument of a new investigation into national identity. At the forefront there is the memory of women, who emerged from the 1974 revolution with a new overbearing personality, and there is the memory of the fighters and victims of the war in Africa, wanted by the Salazarist regime and closed with the abandonment of the colonies, premise of the rebirth of a more modern and dynamic country, testified by the last of the great international exhibitions of the twentieth century, the Lisbon Expo in 1998. But there is also the collective memory of the great ones of the past, from Camões, the father of the homeland, in Pessoa, the poet of disquiet who has become one of the obligatory referents of every literary discourse in the country. In any case, the literature of the new Portugal sees on the scene some great characters, almost always active on all fronts of literary creation, which are joined by the new voices engaged in a dialogue, on the one hand, with contemporary influences from Europe but also from an ancestral and avant-garde Brazil, and, on the other, with a history of maritime adventures, conquests and shipwrecks, which the Colombian celebrations of 1992 made it possible to rediscover. References to the sea and to the history of the country are found in almost all the great consecrated poets. The names are those of E. de Andrade, whose Lorchi ancestry is expressed in an extraordinary metaphorical and linguistic knowledge (References to the sea and to the history of the country are found in almost all the great consecrated poets. The names are those of E. de Andrade, whose Lorchi ancestry is expressed in an extraordinary metaphorical and linguistic knowledge (References to the sea and to the history of the country are found in almost all the great consecrated poets. The names are those of E. de Andrade, whose Lorchi ancestry is expressed in an extraordinary metaphorical and linguistic knowledge (Poetry and prose, 1989; Os lugares do lume, 1998), A. Ramos Rosa, who welcomes ecological and animist suggestions in his poetry ( Delta Seguido pela primeira vez, 1996), F. Guimarães ( A analogia das folhas, 1990), H. Hélder, in which the surrealist lesson leads to poetic experimentalism ( Do mundo, 1994), A. Osório ( Crónica da fortuna, 1997), Portugal Tamen ( Depois de ver, 1995), H. Macedo ( Viagem de inverno, 1994), M. Alegre, bard of epic breath ( Atlântico, 1989; Sonetos do Obscuro Quê, 1993; 30 anos de poesia: obra poética complet, 1995), G. Cruz ( As pedras negras, 1994), V. Graça Moura ( A sombra das figuras, 1985; Poemas escolhidos, 1963-1995, 1996), N. Júdice, poeta and narrator. Among the narrators the best known name is that of J. Saramago, Nobel Prize for literature in 1998, author of novels in which the historical matter is seen in a metaphorical perspective and expressed in a very peculiar oralizing language. Alongside him we must remember J. Cardoso Pires who remained faithful, even in his last works, to his vocation as interpreter of the Portuguese national character. Together with these two authors, especially at an international level, A. Lobo Antunes. Among others we must at least remember U. Tavares Rodrigues, F. Campos, A. Abelaira, A. Alçada Baptista, M. Cláudio, A. Faria, M.de Carvalho, J. de Melo. Particularly thick is the presence of female writers. Still stands out among all of them S. de Mello Breyner Andresen, a very complex personality in which the poetess of a classical setting and the childhood narrator of smiling complicity coexist. A similar polyvalent inspiration is found in many younger poetesses, storytellers, essayists and dramatic authors, such as A. Hatherly, F. Hasse Pais Brandão or YK Centeno. But even for writers, the novel or short story plays a leading role. The most authoritative of the Portuguese storytellers is considered A. Bessa Luís, a prolific novelist, playwright, biographer and critic.
Portuguese-speaking literature
Portuguese-language African literature arises from the Lusitanian colonial expansion started in the 15th century. and continued until the 1970s, when the African territories occupied by the Portugal (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe) progressively gained independence. Colonial expansion allowed the spread of Portuguese culture also to other areas: on the one hand Brazil (➔ # 10132;), where literature is established at first dependent on the motherland, then increasingly free from European canons, and on the other, Asia, strewn with cultural traces of the former Lusitanian empire.
● Indo-Portuguese literature (which has its main center in Goa) begins with F. Álvares do Oriente (16th century), but is only from the 19th century. that Portuguese India gives an original production to the motherland. The poetry, now romantic, now Parnassian, moved by themes such as nature and Indian legends, counts authors such as F. Leal, C. Aires, M. Gracias, Portugal Dias, F. Barreto, H. Meneses Rodrigues and JFA Barreto. The novel, built on the model of V. Hugo, finds its highest expression in Os brâmanes (1866) by FL Gomes. Among the literary magazines born between the end of the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century we remember Ilustração goana, O heraldo, Índia portuguesa and Revista da Índia. The oral tradition still bears evidence of Indo-Portuguese and Male-Portuguese, born from the encounter between Portuguese and local cultures. The Macao area – described by Portuguese authors such as C. Pessanha, in China (posthumously, 1944), and M. da Silva Mendes – was the birthplace of L. Gonzaga Gomes, author of short fiction (Lendas chinesas de Macau, 1951); in the following decades the writers M. Ondina and AM da Silva Amaro have established themselves. Poetry in the local dialect is cultivated by J. dos Santos Ferreira. The island of Timor, which has attracted Portuguese authors such as A. Osório de Castro and R. Cinatti, is at the center of the production of the Timorese poet and essayist F. Silva (Poemas de Fernando Silva, 1945).
