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| History of Portuguese Literature | Origins of Portuguese Literature | The Portuguese Language | Oral Literature | Fiction | Lyricism |
| Travel Literature | Cantigas de amigo | Historiography | Doctrinal Prose | ||
Fiction
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Following
on from Amadis de Gaula (14C),
chivalrous novels continued to proliferate well into the sixteenth century (Crónica
do Imperador Clarimundo, (Chronicle of the Emperor Clarimundus), 1522, by
the future historian João de Barros,
Memorial das Proezas da Segunda Távola
Redonda, (Record of the
Exploits of the Second Round Table), 1567, by Jorge
Ferreira de Vasconcelos, Palmeirim de
Inglaterra, 1567, by Francisco de
Morais). Another type of fiction was to develop in parallel to this, that of
the pastoral novel: its Iberian model soon acquired a European resonance with
the publication of Diana, in 1559,
written in Spanish, by Jorge de Montemor,
and continued to find an echo in the seventeenth century in the works of Rodrigues
Lobo, a first-rate lyricist and the author of the novels Primavera, Pastor Peregrino
and Desenganado, as well as in Lusitânia
Transformada by Fernão Álvares do
Oriente, and Ribeiras do Mondego,
by Elói de Souto Maior.
The
seventeenth century also witnessed the development of the paraenetic or
exhortatory novel with Os Infortúnios Trágicos da
Constante Florinda, 1633, by Gaspar
Pires de Rebelo. This scheme was later converted into a progressive allegory,
in keeping with the ideals of the Enlightenment,
although it remained fictionally similar to the pedagogical path trodden by Fénelon,
in works such as O Feliz Independente do
Tempo e da Fortuna, 1779, by Padre Teodoro de Almeida, the political content of which had already
been presaged by As Aventuras de Diófanes,
1752, by Teresa Margarida da Silva e
Horta.
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A modern nostalgia for a lost
ideal world, in the form of an amorous lament (the first of these works), an
epic but deconstructed sense of the adventure involved in the discovery and
exploration of the physical world (the second), a picaresque stroll through
urban and rustic settings, from Évora to Lisbon, and their social apology (the
last), clearly illustrate the great wealth and complexity of the novel, which
was to be developed further in the
nineteenth century (with the subjective implications of Garrett, the passionate intrigues
of Camilo Castelo Branco
and the social panorama of Eça
de Queirós), and became firmly established in the twentieth century
(particularly in the deceptive repetitiveness of Raul
Brandão, the urgency of everyday life in Aquilino
Ribeiro, Vitorino
Nemésio and José
Cardoso Pires, or the gentle meanderings through the discourse of
memory in António Lobo Antunes
and the investigation of meaning through the interplay between man and the idea
in José Saramago).
© Instituto Camões, 2001
