Portuguese poetry - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

History

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

poetry (from 12th to 14th century) was produced in Galicia, today a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

province that shares some similarities with Portuguese culture. Like the troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

culture in the Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

and the rest of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Galician-Portuguese poets sang the love for a woman, that often turned into ***personal insults***, as she had hurt her lover's pride. However, ***this region*** produced a specific type of song, known as "cantigas de amigo" (songs of a friend). In these, the lyrical subject is always a woman (though the singer was male) talking about his friend (lover) from whom she has been separated - by war or ***other activities*-** ***implied*** by the Reconquista

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

. They discuss the loneliness that the woman feels. But some poems also project eroticism, or confess the lover's meeting in a secret place, often through a dialogue she has with her mother or with natural elements (such can maybe be considered a custom adapted from the pagan peoples in the region). Epic poetry was also produced, as was common in Romantic medieval regions (Gesta de D. Afonso Henriques, of unknown authorship).
With the expansion, poetry preserved some of these main characteristics - cantigas de amigo were written even by kings, like Dinis I.

But it was with the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

that poets embarked on ***a new age of literature*** due to influences from Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

and the peculiar Portuguese experience of the Discoveries

Portuguese Empire

The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...

. Sá de Miranda (1481–1558) introduced the sonnet, which became, until today, a very common form. But his lyrical works (he also wrote plays) never abandoned traditional forms. He displays a certain antipathy to rapid changes in social structure and values.
Bernardim Ribeiro

Bernardim Ribeiro

Bernardim Ribeiro was a Portuguese poet and writer. His father, Damião Ribeiro, was implicated in the conspiracy against John II of Portugal...

(1482?–1536?) made use of bucolic poetry, singing about love fatalistically (he is more renowned, however, for his prose work Menina e Moça). In the next generation, António Ferreira

António Ferreira

António Ferreira was a Portuguese poet and the foremost representative of the classical school, founded by Francisco de Sá de Miranda. His most considerable work, Castro, is the first tragedy in Portuguese, and the second in modern European literature.-His life:Ferreira was a native of Lisbon...

(1528–1569), making a wide use of classical forms, expresses the same antipathy related to the detriment of society, but with a pedagogical purpose.
This was also the time of Gonçalo Anes

António Gonçalves de Bandarra

António Gonçalves Annes Bandarra or Gonçalo Anes Bandarra was a Portuguese writer and prophet.- Life and work :...

(1500–1566), most known as Bandarra, a cobbler that learned to read despite his low social status, and who read the Bible. His songs can be considered the birth of sebastianism

Sebastianism

Sebastianism, one aspect of the sleeping king folk-motif, is part of the Portuguese and Brazilian mythology and culture. It means waiting for a hero that will save Portugal and lead it to the Fifth Empire, and known as Eu nacional...

, a central theme of Portuguese culture (do note that he lived, however, before Sebastian I was even born).
The Portuguese expansion also gave birth to epic poetry. Jerónimo Corte-Real

Jerónimo Corte-Real

Jerónimo Corte-Real was Portuguese epic poet, who came of a noble Portuguese stock. He is sometimes regarded as the Portuguese Virgil....

, with his O Segundo Cerco de Diu (The Second Siege of Diu) should be mentioned, but his classic influence is not well defined.
But the great poet, both of lyric and epic, is, unquestionably, Luís de Camões

Luís de Camões

Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...

(1525?-1580). He talks about love, the passing of time and world's disconcert, using a fine formal ***dominion***, expressing is duality ***related to*** a platonic view of the world, and a cepticism regarding injustice, the passing of time and the complexity of love.
He wrote what is considered the most important poem of Portuguese Literature, Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), singing the maritimal voyague of Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...

form Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. Duality between man and the divine, conscience on the importance of the Discoveries

Portuguese Empire

The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...

to modern world's formation, history of Portugal

History of Portugal

The history of Portugal, a European and an Atlantic nation, dates back to the Early Middle Ages. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it ascended to the status of a world power during Europe's "Age of Discovery" as it built up a vast empire including possessions in South America, Africa, Asia and...

, notion of Portugal's social and idealogical problems, belief on Man-Kind evolution, this all is among the poem's verses (when he died Sebastian I was about to go on the fatidical voyague to Africa).

After this period of national pride, the dark years of Spanish domination saw a continuation on epic production, that did not equalized Camões. Those poems may be seen as a resistance to foreign domination. Pointing some authors: Luís Brandão (Elegíaca), Rodrigues Lobo (Condestrabre), Vasco Mouzinho de Quevedo (Afonso Africano), Sá de Meneses (Malaca Conquistada), Gabriel de Castro (Ulisseia), António Macedo (Ulissipo). Such epic cycle ended with the poem Viriato Trágico, by Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas, that fought in the Restoration War.
In 17th century, poets had their ***liberty conditioned*** by the Inquisition

Inquisition

The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...

. Among with other ***factores***, one could see this period as a decline **on** Portuguese poetry, **were** the lack of autonomy and subjects is noted. This may well be seen as a ***crises*** of Portuguese identity on a world were he appeared not to be adapted on. Such ***crises** was transferred, in the 17th century, to the Arcádia Lusitânia. This academy made the transition, trough Manuel du Bocage (1765–1805) , to Romantism.

But only with Almeida Garrett

Almeida Garrett

João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, Viscount of Almeida Garrett was a Portuguese poet, playwright, novelist and politician. He is considered to be the introducer of the Romanticism in Portugal, with the epic poem Camões, based on the life of Luís de Camões...

(1799–1854), with his poem Camões, we can consider Romantism, and its following consequences, implanted in Portugal. Crises of national culturality "collapsed": romantic nostalgy became applied to Portuguese declined condition, being the rest of Europe considered the real focus of civilization. This complex of inferiority (that did not abolish a complex of superiority) became extremely incisive with the Realistic generation, the "Geração de 70". In poetry, Antero de Quental

Antero de Quental

Antero Tarquínio de Quental , old spelling Anthero, , a Portuguese poet, philosopher and writer, whose works became a milestone in the Portuguese language, alongside those of Camões or Bocage....

(1842–1891) was one of most remarkable Portuguese poets of the 19th century - he introduced what can be considered as philosophical poetry, which expresses sadness and horror due to a lack of sense in life (making him committing suicide). Guerra Junqueiro

Guerra Junqueiro

Abilio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro was a Portuguese, bachelor in law at the University of Coimbra, a top civil servant, member of the Portuguese House of Representatives, journalist, author, and poet. His work helped inspire the creation of the Portuguese First Republic...

(1850–1923) and João de Deus

João de Deus

João de Deus Ramos , better known as João de Deus, the greatest Portuguese poet of his generation, was born in Silves, São Bartolomeu de Messines, in the province of Algarve, son of Pedro José Ramos and wife Isabel Gertrudes Martins...

(1830–1896) should also be considered in this period.

With the symbolist movement, Camilo Pessanha

Camilo Pessanha

Camilo Pessanha was a Portuguese symbolist poet.-Early years:Camilo de Almeida Pessanha was born the illegitimate son of Francisco António de Almeida Pessanha, an aristocratic law student, and Maria do Espírito Santo Duarte Nunes Pereira, his housekeeper, on September 7, 1867, at 11.00 p.m., in Sé...

(1867–1926) must be pointed. His works reflects his jorney to Asia. Related to impressionism, Cesário Verde

Cesário Verde

Cesário Verde was a 19th-century Portuguese poet. His work, while mostly ignored during his lifetime and not well known outside of the country’s borders even today, is generally considered to be amongst the most important in Portuguese poetry and is widely taught in schools...

(1855–1886) was ignored during his short life by literally circles.O Sentimento de um Ocidental (A Westerner's Feeling) is his masterpiece, were the poet describes a night in the streets of Lisbon with his "absurda necessidade de sofrer" (absurd ***necessity*** of suffering).

This moment was brief, nevertheless, and the Modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

was ***about to come***. Mystical poetry had Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877–1952)as an example and Futurism

Futurism

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...

saw Mário de Sá-Carneiro

Mário de Sá-Carneiro

Mário de Sá-Carneiro was a Portuguese poet and writer. He is one of the most well known of the "Geração D'Orpheu".-Life:...

.
Modernism was also responsible form the liberation of the complex regarding Portuguese view of themselves (at least in what concerns poetry), mainly thanks to Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...

(1888–1935), the second great Portuguese poet. Of a dense personality, unique and complex, he wrote under many names, not pseudonyms, but what he named has heteronyms: which heteronym had his one personality, way of writing and biography. The most renowned are: Alberto Caeiro, considered the master of them all, positivist and bucolic, Ricardo Reis, pagan and epucurist (but with stoical influence), Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

ortonym, trapped on his interior labyrinth and tedium, Álvaro de Campos

Álvaro de Campos

Álvaro de Campos was one of the poet Fernando Pessoa's various heteronyms, widely known by his powerful and wraithful writing style. Campos' works may be split in three phases: the decadentist phase, the futuristic phase and the decadent phase...

, futurist, and Bernardo Soares, that wrote Livro do Desassosego (Book of Disquiet).
Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

**** Mensagem (Message). It is a sebastianist poem formed ***trough a series of smaller ones***. Portuguese cultural handicap, its interior antagonisms and ***unappropriated*** present in modern world, appear questioned and dealed according to the Portuguese feeling of existence and life.
Later on, trough the 20th century, despite living under a dictatorship, Portuguese poets were able to use Pessoa's legacy to create a corpus of diverse poetic expression. Some names to be mencioned are: Miguel Torga

Miguel Torga

Miguel Torga, pseudonym of Adolfo Correia da Rocha is considered one of the greatest Portuguese writers of the 20th century...

, Alexandre De Lusignan Fan-Moniz, José Régio

José Régio

José Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...

, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andersen, Eugénio de Andrade

Eugénio de Andrade

Eugénio de Andrade was the pseudonym of José Fontinhas, GOSE, GCM , a Portuguese poet.José Fontinhas was born at Póvoa de Atalaia, Fundão. He is revered as one of the leading names in contemporary Portuguese poetry...

, Florbela Espanca and Helberto Hélder.

History

See also