An Introduction to Lusophone Literature

Hi there, since I see very little people commenting on literature in portuguese, my beloved language, I just felt like writing an introduction to it and talk a little about some of its greatest authors. Enjoy.

First comes Luís de Camões, who wrote the masterpiece The Lusiads, and epic poem that influenced the entire language and literature of everyone who speaks portuguese. He's our Dante, our Homer, our Milton. His work is an ode to Portugal, there are several allegories that glorifies this great nation. It's definitely a masterpiece worth reading. There are certainly a lot of translations of his works for several languages out there.

Next comes Father Antonio Vieira, a great catholic priest who wrote several books on christianity and gave great sermons to common and literate people. His influence was huge and his works have probably some of the most beautiful proses in lusophone literature. I don't know about translations, but there must be some in french or spanish.

Done with the history part, then starts the great classics, amongst them are Machado de Assis, Fernando Pessoa, Eça de Queirós, Castelo-Branco, José Saramago, Ariano Suassuna, Fernando Sabino and Guimarães Rosa. I will comment a little about them and their works.

Other urls found in this thread:

allpoetry.com/To-Nietzsche
sibila.com.br/english/two-poems-2/2260
zocalopoets.com/2014/06/20/augusto-dos-anjos-intimate-verses-and-immortal-lust-translation-by-daniel-vianna/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Machado de Assis: Great writer, Woody Allen regarded his book 'Epitaph of a Small Winner' as one of his favorites. His style is very ironic and philosophical. He was apolitical and didn't talk much about religion. There are translations of his works in english, french, spanish and probably other languages. Wildly regarded as the greatest brazilian writer, or one of the greatests.

Fernando Pessoa: Probably the greatest poet in portuguese language, if not the greatest who have ever lived. I'm not being hyperbolic here, the man really was amazing. He was also quite autistic and created several personalities for himself. Definitely worth checking out. He also wrote somethings in english, a language he really liked.

Eça de Queirós: He was a very good writer, his style is very detailed and, sometimes, 'boring'. But his work is incredible. He was an atheist and very critical of the Catholic Church. Don't know about translations.

Castelo-Branco: Has some really good short stories. Don't know about translations.

José Saramago: Probably the most famous nowadays, so I'll not talk much about him. He has a good prose and is an atheist. His books are definitely good.

Ariano Suassuna: A great scholar of the northeast brazilian culture. Has some really nice theater pieces. I wouldn't equal him with Shakespeare, but he's definitely good. Worth checking, but unfortunately I'm not aware of any translations of his works.

Fernando Sabino: Nice modern writer. Probably no translations though.

Guimarães Rosa: Now it's finally him, my favorite. The one I would call the greatest. Guimarães Rosa wrote what would be considered the brazilian version of Ulysses. His monumental work 'The Devil to Pay in the Backlands' is geniality at its core. No wonder his books was chosen as one of the 100 greatest books by the Bokkluben World Library. Although there are translations of it, It's quite rare to find them for some reason, but try your best to find one, because you'll not regret it, he really is one of the greatest writers of post-modernism and comparing him to James Joyce or Python is no exaggeration.

Hope this made you feel compelled to read some lusophone literature.

There are a lot more than those tough, but I think I made a nice sum up of some of the greatest writers of the portuguese language.

Good bread anâo.

Fuck I don't have time to learn another language senpai

your japanese is coming along great though

あらがとう!

yeah

E o Valter Hugo Mãe caralho

>Fernando Pessoa: Probably the greatest poet in portuguese language
Right recommend me something by him besides the book of disquiet.

Eu seu um abacaxi.

Tudo bem

>Guimarães Rosa: Now it's finally him, my favorite. The one I would call the greatest. Guimarães Rosa wrote what would be considered the brazilian version of Ulysses. His monumental work 'The Devil to Pay in the Backlands' is geniality at its core. No wonder his books was chosen as one of the 100 greatest books by the Bokkluben World Library. Although there are translations of it, It's quite rare to find them for some reason, but try your best to find one, because you'll not regret it, he really is one of the greatest writers of post-modernism and comparing him to James Joyce or Python is no exaggeration.
Humm...Guimarães Rosa was no postmodernist though, but he was indeed one of the most important modernist of the 20th century, and likely the most important one in all america latina. And I agree putting it on side of ulysses, it is a bit similar both in prose quality and style, truly a wonderful book.

>Python
Pynchon you mean? hehe

good thread and good initiative user. I always "shill" some brazilian writers here, deservedly, of course, to get people to know more of it.

gospeed anãos, now reading Os lusíadas and its great

JORGE AMADO
O
R
G
E

A
M
A
D
O

more specifically, captains of the sands

Não pode haver uma thread sobre literatura portuguesa sem vir um labrego qualquer armar-se em esperto sem contribuir para nada. Porque é que em vez de essa resposta de merda não escreveste porque e que achas que o Valter Hugo Mãe devia estar na lista?

* literatura lusófona, erro grave, peço desculpa

Very nice thread OP
I'm thinking of picking up a language and I'm not sure if I want to pick Spanish, Portuguese or French.

>I'm not sure if I want to pick a great literary tradition, 3.5 half-decent memes or great literary tradition
hmm

For literature i think you should learn french honestly, but if you learn spanish you'll probably be able to also read portuguese

not true. a native spanish speaker can read simple portuguese texts, just as a portuguese speaker can read simple spanish texts. however, lets say an anglo, will never be able to read portuguese just by knowing spanish...will help a lot learning it though.

learning any of those 3 will help learning the other 2. as for language tradition, french is the second (modern) lingua franca of philosophy behind germany and has some great literature. spanish and portuguese I guess is kind of similar, few GREAT classics and a decent number of pretty good minor classics not known here in Veeky Forums.

>not including the actual greatest poet
Pessoa is great and all, but compared to Augusto dos Anjos he, and practically of all modern poetry, looks embarrassingly shallow. Only a few of Augusto's time, like Mallarmé and Rilke, are on his level but none surpass him. He's comparable to Lucretius, Seneca, Virgil and Homer as an all-time great.

Here's some translated stuff for ya saxons:
allpoetry.com/To-Nietzsche

sibila.com.br/english/two-poems-2/2260

zocalopoets.com/2014/06/20/augusto-dos-anjos-intimate-verses-and-immortal-lust-translation-by-daniel-vianna/

I'd call you a faggot for not including José de Alencar, but I realized he can't really be translated without fucking it up

Go die.
I will now share an extremely unknown fact in brazillian literature. Noite na Taverna is actually good.

Literally required reading for Fuvest, though

Fialho de Almeida is the best author I've read after Pessoa

How do I get into Pessoa?

Campos, Caeiro, Mensagem.

Now we got some serious shit here, don't you think he's a little to morbid? The man is obsessed with maggots aparently. Also, translated poetry?

>Pessoa is great and all, but compared to Augusto dos Anjos he, and practically of all modern poetry, looks embarrassingly shallow

He is a great poet, but this is beyond ridiculous

I'm a Spanish native speaker, and never got the taste for learning Portuguese.

What do you say about your language that makes it worthwhile learning?

capitans of the sand
the eternal son

I would also like to add Clarice Lispector as a great lusophone writer. She has been translated into several languages. I also think Graciliano Ramos is worth checking out.

No, man. What do you say about YOUR language that makes it worth learning?
Noticia de Un Secuestro is prettty boring, Narcos was much better.

Spanish has a cadence, a rhythm with so much song in it, yet a very strong sound that makes it really beautiful to read. Its poetry is for me a treat to enjoy.

There are so much writers in Spanish that it is just plain to name one writer as an example. García Márquez has a slow style and it really builds on the imagination and mood like no one I've read.

I'm really curious about a Portuguese native speaker's perspective on their own language. I got really few knowledge about it to form an opinion.

Literally every word in this language is ironic
It's impossible to know when someone is being sincere or just fuckong around
That's why every luso is so prone to joking about anything

I feel so bad for England, Spain, Portugal--it must suck to be overtaken by a former colony.

The only good thing going for Noite na Taverna is that it's short and can be read in an hour. Byron is so much better.

I prefer Macário

I love my language and would sincerely say almost the same things you used to describe spanish. I see a lot of tourists saying that when we speak portuguese, it's like we're singing. Some people also say its sound is a mixture of spanish and russian.

If you want reasons to learn portuguese, I can't really give you, but spanish is so similar to it that you can probably reach an advanced level in portuguese in less than 5 months if you study every day. The literature, like said in this thread, is good but not comparable to the great countries like France, Russia or Germany. I would recommend learning if you really like brazilian or portuguese culture and because it would be quite easy for you.

None of those countries has been, in terms of literature.

Fucking terrible.

Faulkner, Melville, Pynchon, Wallace, Twain, Fitzgerald > English Literature.

Melville and Pynchon are good, but lmao, no

quincas berros d´água by jorge amado is pretty interesting

joão ubaldo ribeiro is the most brazilian author btw