Representações da África colonial no panorama: Revista Portuguesa de Arte e Turismo (1941-1944)

Reflections and InsightsThe Year in Portugal Cláudia Faria (bio) In Portugal, the tradition of life writing is still embryonic. Catherine Dumas, Portuguese teacher at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris, argues that there is a tendency to include the writing of diaries in fictional literature and she stresses that in general, these two genres are frequently confused with one another. In fact, only recently, scholars in academia have started to include memoirs, diaries, biographies, autobiographies, and other forms of life writing in their curricula. It is also important to note that the first study on letter writing in Portugal dates only from 1965, thus demonstrating how late the theme has caught the attention of specialists. In fact, the work of Andrée Crabbé Rocha, A epistolografia em Portugal, is still essential, hence revealing how little else has been added in terms of critics. This proves that the theme continues to be not only out of academia but also out of the canon. However, Clara Rocha, author of Máscaras de Narciso, argues that genres like diaries, memoirs, letters, and biographies can be seen in Portuguese literature since ancient times, while the same is not applicable to autobiographies. If during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries auto/biographical texts were produced by nuns, priests, and by an elite, in the twentieth century, Portuguese authors have put out auto/biographical texts in the form of diaries and memoirs. Maria Alzira Seixo, professor at Lisbon University, has no doubt that the diary of the Portuguese writer Vergilio Ferreira, Contracorrente, issued in 1980, marks a turning point, being hence acknowledge as a courageous and challenging approach of the author rather than a literary tendency. Since then, the diary became fashionable in Portugal. As far as diaries by women are concerned, Clara Rocha’s Máscaras de Narciso, dated from 1992 is considered a pioneering work. Other Portuguese writers, realizing the pleasures of the genre and, in particular, the opportunity to avoid or challenge regulations, as well as its power to resist and forget, have also shown an [End Page 648] inclination to these types of texts. Portuguese author Irene Lisboa points to the wonders of writing about nothing important, and how free she feels to be able to get away from other people’s eyes. Portuguese author, Maria Gabriela Llanson, explains that keeping a diary is like being at her own house, but with the feeling of coming to pay a visit to someone else. In reality, the Portuguese market is still saturated with translated biographies and autobiographies of notable people, mainly politicians, musicians, or film stars from outside Portugal. First-person texts of common citizens are still rare. We have to take into consideration that diaries and letters are still considered paraliterary texts and hence scholarly interest is little. Paulo de Medeiros in “The Diary and Portuguese Women Writers,” suggests that diaries are in fact a non-genre, which explains why there are so few studies on them. Abel Barros Baptista, in his article “O Espelho perguntador,” argues that the discussion behind the reason to write diaries and first-person texts should not be the main goal of literary criticism, even less to prove whether these texts are literary or not. Assuming that there is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction, and although the genre has been considered delicate if not doomed, we believe the discussion should go further to find out why the writing of life, of ordinary and plain days, tends to makes us feel uncomfortable and, in particular, why in Portugal the status of life writing is still marginal. The writing of the self, in its varied forms and as suggested by Catherine Dumas, responds to the urgent and contemporary quest for self-determination, either as a notable and extraordinary struggle or as a plain and ordinary account. This is where its relevance lies. This is the challenge. Even if there is an almost natural fragility to “inscribing the daily,” as the title of Bunker and Huff’s book indicates, or a certain unraveling in the self-quest, and even as critics continue to relegate life narratives to silence, the truth is that writing random notes on a...

This article investigates Lope de Vega’s relationships with Portuguese authors. To do this, it studies the lyrics of his final stage, that of the thirties of the 17th century, and the elegiac poems of Portuguese writers published at his death.

This research aims at enlarging the understanding of the value and importance of the Italian contributions which helped create the literary myth of Fernando Pessoa. This kind of research was carried out with a practical approach, in order to collect every Italian publication, in particular works by Pessoa translated into Italian, critical essays about the Portuguese poet, anthologies text book extracts, journal articles, tourist guides and intertextual operations (narrative works, movies, songs, plays…) where Fernando Pessoa’s works and personality are remediated. From a methodological point of view, it was necessary to create a database to collect and analyse the materials and therefore understand the reception of the Portuguese author in our country. The chronological boundaries were established during the works analysis and were determined from the end of the 1930s (the years of the first Italian translation of a Pessoa’s poem) to the present day. The study reveals the main Italian key to the interpretation of Pessoa’s works, while at the same time suggesting to what extent the Italian interpretations were fundamental in the construction of Pessoa’s myth. This research therefore revolves around conceptualizing how the figure of the Portuguese writer is perceived by Italian readers. And which Italian ‘filters’ returned to the reader, and in general to the Italian ‘imaginary’, the Portuguese writer.

Portuguese writer Maria Gabriela Llansol (1931–2008) published three diaries that became intimate dialogues with her other works. Um falcao no punho (1998a), Finita (1987) and Inquerito as quatro confidencias (1996) are diaristic accounts that register the author’s daily routine but enhance both the nomadic character of her texts (Llansol lived more than twenty years in Belgium, in exile from the Salazar regime) and the intimate encounter of the writer with nature. This article examines how these diaries expose Llansol’s literary project which is underlined by a concept of nature and women working together towards the blurring of the boundaries between the human, vegetable and animal realms.

Portuguese authors published widely in Spanish during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially during the Spanish occupation from 1580 to 1640. As the literary language of prestige, Spanish offered them avenues of fame and wealth that were not available otherwise. While most Portuguese writers abandoned their native tongue at one time or another to write in Spanish, not all did so in order to conform to the wave of castilianization absorbing the peninsula. Ângela de Azevedo, for one, used her Spanish proficiency to glorify Portugal and perpetuate its cultural heritage abroad. The setting, characterization, and language in each of Azevedo's comedias clearly establish a strong sense of patriotism and revolt within her works. Discovering the relationship between Azevedo's Portuguese identity and the content of her plays not only promotes a better understanding of the dramatist and her works, but also advances the important correlation between language, nationality, and literature. (JWW)