Enlightenment

Mafra Convent

A movement of ideas that spread throughout the eighteenth century, based on English philosophy and the agony of the absolutist political regime in France. It began, above all, with the publication of the Encyclopédie, by Diderot and D'Alembert, which gave greater importance to the notions of nature, society, the critical spirit and progress, and was therefore to serve as the basis for the later “modernities” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In Portugal, this was manifested in particular in the cultural sensitivity of the so-called “estrangeirados” (authors who were heavily influenced by foreign customs), in prose writers such as Luís António Verney (Verdadeiro Método de Estudar) and Matias Aires (Reflexões sobre a Vaidade dos Homens), and with the “árcades” (Arcadians, e.g. the members of the “Arcádia Lusitana”, a literary academy of reflection and debate), e.g. Correia Garção, Cruz e Silva. Important poets who were connected with the Arcádia to a greater or lesser extent included: Nicolau Tolentino, Filinto Elísio, Abade de Jazente; and those already more closely connected with the emerging spirit of Romantic sensibility: Marquesa de Alorna, José Anastácio da Cunha and Bocage.

Evocation of the city of Lisbon after being hit by the Earthquake of 1755. Engraving from the period

Freedom, where are you? Who is keeping you? Who causes your influence not to fall upon us? Why (alas, poor me!) why does your aurora No longer shine upon the sphere of Lysia? The time for holy redemption has come To this part of the world, which swoons: Oh! Come... Oh, Come, and may the fierce Despotism That devours us be overthrown! Come on! May you assist the cold, silent morale, That conceals the love of our nation, perverts our will, And, in fearful pretence, engages in study; May our shackles stir your pity; You are our inspiration and glory and all, The mother of genius and pleasure, oh Freedom!                                                                      Bocage, «Liberdade»

© Instituto Camões, 2001