Portuguese Literature

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE. The literature of the Portuguese is distinguished by the wealth and variety of its lyric poetry, its primacy in bucolic verse and prose, the num ber of its epics and historical books, and the relative slightness of its drama, biography and letters. Rich as its romanceiro is, its volume is far less than the Spanish, but the cancioneiros remain to prove that the early love songs of the whole Peninsula were writ ten in Portuguese, while the primitive prose redaction of Amadis, the prototype of all romances of chivalry, was almost certainly made in Portugal, and a native of the same country produced in the Diana of Montemor (Montemayor) the masterpiece of the pastoral novel. The Lusiads may be called at once the most suc cessful epic cast in the classical mould, and the most national of poems, and the great historical monuments and books of travel of the 16th ana 17th centuries are worthy of a nation of explorers who carried the banner of the Quinas to the ends of the earth. On the other hand, Portugal gave birth to no considerable dramatist from the time of Gil Vicente, in the i6th century, until that of Garrett in the i9th, and it has failed to develop a national drama.

The first literary activity of Portugal was derived from Prov ence, and Provencal taste ruled for more than a century; the poets of the 15th century imitated the Castilians, and the i6th saw the triumph of Italian or classical influence. Spain again imposed its literary standards and models in the 17th century, France in the i8th, while the Romantic movement reached Portugal by way of England and France ; and those countries, and in less degree Ger many, have done much to shape the literature of the 19th century. Nearly every Portuguese author of renown from 1450 until the i8th century, except Antonio Ferreira, wrote in Spanish, and some, like Jorge de Montemor and Manoel de Mello, produced masterpieces in that language and are numbered as Spanish classics. Again, in no country was the victory of the Italian Re naissance and the classical revival so complete, so enduring.

Yet Portuguese literature has a distinct individuality which appears in the romanceiro, in the songs named cantares de amigo of the cancioneiros, in the Chronicles of Fernao Lopes, in the His toria tragico-maritima, in the plays of Gil Vicente, in the bucolic verse and prose of the early 16th century, in the Letters of Marianna Alcoforado and, above all, in The Lusiads.

Early Period.

Though no literary documents belonging to the first century of Portuguese history have survived, there is evi dence that an indigenous popular poetry both sacred and profane existed, and while Provencal influences moulded the manifesta tions of poetical talent for nearly 200 years, they did not originate them. A few compositions which have come down to us bear a date slightly anterior to the year 1200. One of the earliest singers was D. Gil Sanches, an illegitimate son of Sancho I., and we pos sess a cantor de amigo in Galician-Portuguese, the first literary vehicle of the whole Peninsula, which appears to be the work of Sancho himself. The pre-Alphonsine period to which these men belong runs from 1200 to 1245 and produced little of moment, but in 1248 the accession of King Alphonso III., who had lived 13 years in France, inaugurated a time of active and rich production which is illustrated in the Cancioneiro do Ajuda, the oldest collec tion of Peninsular verse. The apogee of palace poetry dates from 1275 to 1280, when young Dinis, who had been educated by Ay meric of Cahors, proved himself the most fecund poet-king of his day, though the pleiad of fidalgos forming his court and the jograes who flocked there from all parts, were fewer in number, less pro ductive, and lacked the originality, vigour and brilliance of the singers who versified round Alphonso III.

The principal names of the Dionysian period (1284-1325) which is illustrated in the Cancioneiro da Vaticana are the king himself and his bastards D. Alphonso Sanches and D. Pedro, count of Barcellos. Of the two last, the former sings of love well and sincerely, while the latter is represented by some satirical songs of maldizer, a form which, if it rarely contains much poetical feeling or literary value, throws light on the society of the time.