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