Padre António Vieira

Main masterpieces:   

• Sermão de Santo António aos Peixes (1654)
• Sermão da Sexagésima (1655)
• Sermão da Quinta Dominga da Quaresma (1654)
• Sermão do Bom Ladrão (1655)
• Sermão do Mandato (1655)
• Sermão Pelo Bom Sucesso das Armas de Portugal, contra as da Holanda (1640)

Historical period in literature: 

Classical literature, Baroque period

 

The author's prose

Padre António Vieira’s prose is seen as a model of vigorous and logical style, where the syntactical construction rises above the baroque virtuosity. His wealth and verbal properties, the paradoxes and persuasive effects that even today influence the reader, the seduction of his arguments, sometimes the combative tone, and also certain ironic subtleties, made remarkable his art.

Sermão de Santo António aos Peixes

 

Following disputes with the Portuguese settlers in Brazil, the Sermão de Santo António aos Peixes is an amazing document of the imagination, oratorical skill and satirical power of the author, who takes several fishes as symbols of the vices of those settlers. With a remarkable literary construction and argumentative, the sermon aims to praise some human virtues, but especially to harshly criticize the vices of the settlers.

Consulted sources:  

Portal da Literatura Portuguesa
infopédia_PadreAntónioVieira 
lithis

Luís de Camões

Main masterpieces:   

• Rimas (1572, lyric work)
• Os Lusíadas (1572, epic poetry)

Historical period in literature: 

Classical literature, period of Renaissance, Humanism, Classicism

 

The lyric work

Rimas is the name of the lyric work of Camões.

The lyric is self-confessional and love is always the driving force for the improvement of the poet. Love is consolidated in a luminous image of a woman. Os Lusíadas are narrative and allegory, following a particular path reaches the divinity, the woman, in contrast the lyric never gets there but only reaches the final meeting of the spirit. The lyric as a discourse of the self is much more intimate and confessional regarding the epic poetry. Therefore the construction possibility is not as utopian and far as the lyric.

 

Os Lusíadas, the epic poetry

Famous epic poem by Luís de Camões, published in 1572, which, narrating the sea route to the East by Vasco da Gama, closes a summary of the homeland history.

The dream of every poet of the sixteenth century was the creation of an epic poetry, imitating Homer and Virgil. Matter of national interest and even universal wasn’t missing: the Portuguese Discoveries. It was mandatory to immortalize them.

The central event of the work is the discovery of sea route to India. For his literary treatment, Camões invented a mythological fable where gods, like if they were humans, come into conflict due to the voyage of Vasco da Gama. It generates a real intrigue at the end of which men are mythicized. At the same time, glories of nationality are evoked, with admirable skill.

For a long time the mystifying function of the pagan mythology hadn’t been understood and the poet was even criticized. Today however it is understood that it is in large part due to its presence that depends the narrative cohesion and at the same time the diversity, life and creativity present in the work.

Camões Square in Lisbon, a place of tradition and culture

Statue built in the late romanticism. The Monument to Camões was inaugurated in June 1867. It stands out the figure of Camões, with four meters, based on an octagonal pedestal, surrounded by eight statues represented by notable figures of culture and literature: Pedro Nunes, Fernão Lopes, Azurara, Castanheda, João de Barros, Sá Menezes, Jerónimo Corte-Real and Vasco Quevedo Castello-Branco.

This is a meeting place between Bairro Alto and Chiado.

Portugal Day

On the 10th June Portugal celebrates annually the Portugal Day that is also the date that commemorates the death of Camões.

Consulted sources:  

Portal da Literatura Portuguesa
infopédia_LuísCamões
lithis

Damião de Góis

Main masterpieces written in Latin:    

• Legatio Magni Indorum Presbyteri Joannis (1532)
• Fides, Religio, Moresque Aethiopium (1540)
• Aliquot Opuscula (1544)
• Comentarii Rerum Gestarum in India, Citra Gangem a Lusitanis Anno 1538 (1539)
• Urbis Lovaniensis Obsidio (1546)
• De Bello Cambaico Ultimo (1549)
• Urbis Olisiponis Descriptio (1554)

Main masterpieces written in Portuguese:   

• Crónica do Felicíssimo rei D. Manuel (1566-67)
• Crónica do Príncipe D. João (1567)

Historical period in literature: 

Classical literature, period of Renaissance, Humanism, Classicism

 

Consulted sources:  

Portal da Literatura Portuguesa
infopédia_DamiãoGóis 
Vidas_Lusófonas_DamiãoGóis

Bernardim Ribeiro

 

Main masterpiece:   Menina e Moça

 

Historical period in literature: 

Classical literature, period of Renaissance, Humanism, Classicism

 

Menina e Moça, published three times in the sixteenth century: 1554 (Ferrara, under the title História de Menina e Moça), 1557-58 (Évora, entitled Saudades) and 1559 (Cologne, from the first edition), including the second edition an extension, what is generally accepted as being from the author.

The text represents a convergence of fictional topics, whether in terms of literary history (adding ingredients of the novel of chivalry, the pastoral novel and the sentimental novel), both in terms of content (by conversion to a meeting place, feminine and lamentable, of the Girl – who begins the book with a evocation monologue of movement and change of life – with a Lady, with whom she discusses stories of unhappy love affairs, which are inserted in the central action of fiction).

Love, nature, change and distance are the constant subject matters of this book, the first in Portuguese literature to come loose of the conventions of the coeval fiction to assume the status of feminine narrative of loneliness and yearning.

Consulted sources:  

Portal da Literatura Portuguesa
infopédia_BernardimRibeiro
lithis

Gil Vicente

Main masterpieces:   

• Auto da Visitação (or Monólogo do Vaqueiro) (1502)
• Auto dos Reis Magos (1503)
• Auto da Alma (1508)
• Farsa da Inês Pereira (1523)
• Auto da Barca do Inferno (1517)
• Auto da Barca do Purgatório (1518)
• Auto da Barca da Glória (1519)
• Floresta de Enganos (1536) 

Historical period in literature: 

Classical literature, period of Renaissance, Humanism, Classicism

Pre-vicentine portuguese theater

Gil Vicente was the first Portuguese playwright who gave literary consistency to the theatrical performances that, for centuries, have proliferated and that can be grouped into two broad classes: the religious theater and the profane theater.

Vicentine theather 

Gil Vicente described the Portuguese society of the sixteenth century with a very keen ability to notice and draw the profile of the characters. Considered one of the most important satirist authors in Portugal, uses a number of characters taken from the Portuguese social ghost (sailors, gypsies, peasants, fairies and demons) and also referential to popular languages ​​and dialects.

Imagination and originality, dramatic sense and knowledge of where he lives are usually pointed out as the most positive aspects of his work. However, some consider that his originality and critical sense loses in refinement. In fact, Gil Vicente expresses himself in a simple and direct way, bluntly. Above all, his versatility is appreciated. He can be considered as a rebel, ruthless and evil soul but also as a court jester.

Consulted sources:  

Portal da Literatura Portuguesa

infopédia_GilVicente 
lithis 

Gomes Eanes de Zurara

Main masterpieces:   

• Crónica da Tomada da Cidade de Ceuta (1644)
• Crónica do Conde D. Pedro de Meneses (1792)
• Crónica do Conde D. Duarte de Meneses (1793)
• Crónica do Descobrimento e Conquista de Guiné (1841)

Historical period in literature: 

Medieval literature, period of courtly poets and chroniclers

The Artist's Prose

Zurara succeeded Lopes in 1454, and intended to continue his plan of writing the chronicle of all the Portuguese kings until that date.

Literally less gifted Lopes, Zurara had yet to hard him the fact of report events more or less contemporary, resorting to not only oral testimonies, although submitting them to a scrupulous examination. Zurara is valuable especially as the initiator of the overseas expansion historiography, with the Chronicle about the capture of Ceuta (made ​​in 1415) that will culminate on Os Lusíadas (1572).

His historiographic method differs from Fernão Lopes on some essential points, and results in a reversal: he is concerned with people, individuals, and not with social groups, testifying a chivalrous conception of history, meaning that isolated action of the rider prevails over that of the masses. Furthermore, he shows susceptible to the influence of classical culture, visible in quotes and in certain phraseological tournaments.

 

Consulted sources:  

Portal da Literatura Portuguesa
infopédia_Zurara

Fernão Lopes

Main masterpieces:   

• Crónica de D. Pedro
• Crónica de D. Fernando
• Crónica de D. João

Historical period in literature: 

Medieval literature, period of courtly poets and chroniclers

 

The Artist's Prose

The fundamental characteristic of Fernão Lopes is his powerful visualism: his entire feature’s writer, friend of the truth and clarity, tend to show to us the right thing and how it happened. Through the dialogue in acts, we see the figures, we determine their distinctive features. And as if that were not enough, he is the author who invites us to attentive contemplation.

This tendency to the visual and to the concrete doesn’t deprive, in Lopes, a certain sense of mystery that his religion and cavalry romances had instilled in him. In large scenes, this wing of the mystery communicates to us a thrill of terror and gives them a prophetic magnitude. However, this feature of the imagination is uncommon because the literary genius of Lopes is mainly oriented to the movement and the picturesque.

But it is in describing the crowds that Lopes reaches levels that no Portuguese writer achieved so far. The picture of riots in Lisbon, on the occasion of the death of Andeiro; the behavior of the crowd full of love for the Master and operated by the old and prestigious Álvaro Pais, the mystical and burning desire that invades her for having a king, chosen by their own affection; the heroism and tribulations of the Lisbon’s siege, all this results from a marvelous intuition and it is described with a power of sympathy. The modern science of crowds finds in these pictures, strongly drawn by the chronicler, the confirmation of the most indisputable results that he has achieved; the impulsive force, blind love, cruelty, sublime dedication, in short everything that makes up the greatness and terribleness of the collective soul, exasperated at times of crisis.

Consulted sources:  

lithis
Portal da Literatura Portuguesa
infopédia_FernãoLopes 
Projecto Vercial_FernãoLopes