An essential chronological framework for students of Portuguese literature. This companion volume offers an introduction to European Portuguese literature for university-level readers. It consists of a chronological overview of Portuguese literature from the twelfth century to the present day, by some ofthe most distinguished literary scholars of recent years, leading into substantial essays centred on major authors, genres or periods, and a study of the history of translations. It does not attempt an encyclopaedic coverage of Portuguese literature, but provides essential chronological and bibliographical information on all major authors and genres, with more extensive treatment of key works and literary figures, and a particular focus on the modern period. It is unashamedly canonical rather than thematic in its examination of central authors and periods, without neglecting female writers. In this way it provides basic reference materials for students beginning the study of Portuguese literature, and for a wider audience looking for general or specific information. The editors have made a principled decision to exclude both Brazilian and African literature, which demand separate treatment. STEPHEN PARKINSON, CLAUDIA PAZOS ALONSO and T. F. EARLE are all members of the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese at the University of Oxford. CONTRIBUTORS: Vanda Anastacio, Helena Carvalhao Buescu, Rip Cohen, T. F. Earle, David Frier,Luis Gomes, Mariana Gray de Castro, Helder Macedo, Patricia Odber de Baubeta, Hilary Owen, Stephen Parkinson, Claudia Pazos Alonso, Juliet Perkins, Teresa Pinto Coelho, Phillip Rothwell, Mark Sabine, Claire Williams, Clive Willis.

This book brings together textual commentaries in English and Portuguese on thirty representative works of literature in Portuguese - either complete poems or extracts from longer works.

An essential chronological framework for students of Portuguese literature. This companion volume offers an introduction to European Portuguese literature for university-level readers. It consists of a chronological overview of Portuguese literature from the twelfth century to the present day, by some ofthe most distinguished literary scholars of recent years, leading into substantial essays centred on major authors, genres or periods, and a study of the history of translations. It does not attempt an encyclopaedic coverage of Portuguese literature, but provides essential chronological and bibliographical information on all major authors and genres, with more extensive treatment of key works and literary figures, and a particular focus on the modern period. It is unashamedly canonical rather than thematic in its examination of central authors and periods, without neglecting female writers. In this way it provides basic reference materials for students beginning the study of Portuguese literature, and for a wider audience looking for general or specific information. The editors have made a principled decision to exclude both Brazilian and African literature, which demand separate treatment. STEPHEN PARKINSON, CLAUDIA PAZOS ALONSO and T. F. EARLE are all members of the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese at the University of Oxford. CONTRIBUTORS: Vanda Anastacio, Helena Carvalhao Buescu, Rip Cohen, T. F. Earle, David Frier,Luis Gomes, Mariana Gray de Castro, Helder Macedo, Patricia Odber de Baubeta, Hilary Owen, Stephen Parkinson, Claudia Pazos Alonso, Juliet Perkins, Teresa Pinto Coelho, Phillip Rothwell, Mark Sabine, Claire Williams, Clive Willis.

Antigone's Daughters? provides the first detailed discussion in English of six well-known Portuguese women writers, working across a wide range of genres: Florbela Espanca (1894-1930), Irene Lisboa (1892-1958), Agustina Bessa Luis, (1923- ), Natalia Correia (1923-93), Helia Correia (1949 -) and Lidia Jorge (1946 - ). Together they cover the span of the 20th century and afford historical insights into the complex gender politics of achieving institutional acceptance and validation in the Portuguese national canon at different points in the 20th century. Although a patrilinear evolutionary model visibly structures national literary history in Portugal to the present day, women writers and critics have not generally sought to replace this with a matrilinear feminist counter-history. The unifying metaphor that the authors adopt here for the purpose of discussing Portuguese women's ambivalent response to female genealogy is the classical figure of Antigone, who paradoxically sacrifices her own genealogical continuity in the name of defending family and kinship, while resisting the patriarchal pragmatics of state-building. Should women writers, faced with the absence of a female tradition, posit a woman-centred place outside the jurisdiction of male genealogy, however strategically essentialist that place may be, or should they primarily eschew fixed sexual identity to act as unnameable saboteurs, undoing the law of patriarchal tradition from within?"

The Portuguese Antonio Pedro (1909-1966) was a cosmopolitan and multifaceted artist; one of the pioneers of surrealism in Portugal, both as a visual artist and as a writer. He was involved in the London surrealist group in 1944-5. Today Pedro is perhaps best remembered for his steadfast opposition to Salazar's long dictatorship, initially as a BBC radio broadcaster in wartime London and, on his return to Portugal, as the director of TEP (Teatro Experimental do Porto) throughout the 1950s. Just a Story (1942) comes at the halfway point in his forward-looking transnational trajectory. Pedro lived in Brazil in 1940-1 and, while largely ignored up to now, his experience of modernity in the tropics included encounters with major Brazilian cultural players such as Mario de Andrade, Jorge de Lima, Jorge Amado, and Antonio Candido. Just a Story stands, up to a point, as a miniature Portuguese equivalent of the groundbreaking Brazilian rhapsody Macunaima: an iconoclastic novella- or a novel, if we adopt the label Pedro bestowed on his creation simply 'because he felt like it'. Illustrated by the author, it combines surrealist tendencies with the irreverent streak that so frequently distinguished Brazilian modernism. Written predominantly from a first-person perspective, this surreal tale follows the amazing adventures of the protagonist, including his birth in the rural North of Portugal, his picaresque migration to the city, his uncanny love tryst with alluring Lulu, and his final homecoming and mind-blowing demise. To read it is to step into a child-like world of dreams and playful delight in the nonsensical. Yet, at the same time, this thought-provoking work also invites the reader on a meaningful, profound journey through human experience and reality.

This collection brings together textual commentaries on thirty representative works of literature in Portuguese either complete poems or extracts from longer works ranging from the medieval lyric of the 13th century, through the poetry and drama of the Portuguese Renaissance, the great Realist novels of the nineteenth century, early twentieth century Modernism and post-1974 writings through to the present day, while also including examples of 19th- and 20th- century Brazilian literature. The authors chosen poets, dramatists and novelists are generally regarded as iconic writers, and the three most famous canonical Portuguese authors (Luis de Camoes, Fernando Pessoa, Jose Saramago) are featured, but the texts selected for commentary strike a balance between a focus on well-known and lesser-studied works. All the primary texts are reproduced in Portuguese, sometimes in original editions, with English translations added for the majority. The contributors variously explicate and contextualise the works they present, some focusing on hidden meaning, others on philological aspects of editing, others on their historical, intellectual and philosophical context, and others still on the process of translation itself. All, however, aim to develop the art of reading, for the benefit of scholars and students alike. Stephen Parkinson and Claudia Pazos Alonso are members of the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese at Oxford University, and editors of the Companion to Portuguese Literature (Tamesis, 2009)."