Research project financed by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Imagens da totalidade.
A inscrição global da cultura portuguesa
numa perspetiva transcolonial
2024-2025
Any culture constructs images of totality, of the universal “whole”. This is why Hans Blumenberg considered the concept of the “world” one of the “absolute metaphors” structuring cultural discourse. Since the beginning of the modern era, Portuguese culture has invested massively in images of totality, such as the armillary sphere or the Camonian “world machine”. Maritime expansion shaped the image of a global Portugal, transcribed, without loss of continuity, in the colonial imagination. The propaganda of Salazarism accentuated the trans-continental vision of the Portuguese homeland. On the other hand, intellectuals proposed an alternative totality, based on participation in what was defined as universal “high culture”. Such a vision can be read, for example, in Jorge de Sena's Metamorphoses. However, an uncomfortable perception of Portuguese culture persisted; it was seen as marginalized, minor, as “the illegitimate daughter of universal culture” (Eduardo Lourenço). In the 1990s, the political-cultural project of Lusophony came to restructure the "Portuguese world", encountering criticism from Alfredo Margarido and other thinkers who criticized the ghostly and anachronistic aspect of this reconfiguration.
This research project will focus on the construction of a new image of totality ("world") in Portuguese literature of recent decades. The proposed working hypothesis is that this new construction dialogues, in a central way, with the beginnings of the modern era and the premises of the imaginary that was configured in the 16th century. In Manuel Alegre's Jornada de Africa, the myth of the crusade embodied in the figure of D. Sebastião was questioned. In Uma viagem a India by Gonçalo Tavares, the epic paradigm of the Lusiads was deconstructed. Finally, in Caim by José Saramago the myth of the Adamic origin of humanity, configurating the myth of the unifying mission as Portugal's providential destiny, was deconstructed. Dissolving the premises of the imaginary, Portuguese culture radically reconfigures the conditions of its global inscription.
This research project will focus on the construction of a new image of totality ("world") in Portuguese literature of recent decades. The proposed working hypothesis is that this new construction dialogues, in a central way, with the beginnings of the modern era and the premises of the imaginary that was configured in the 16th century. In Manuel Alegre's Jornada de Africa, the myth of the crusade embodied in the figure of D. Sebastião was questioned. In Uma viagem a India by Gonçalo Tavares, the epic paradigm of the Lusiads was deconstructed. Finally, in Caim by José Saramago the myth of the Adamic origin of humanity, configurating the myth of the unifying mission as Portugal's providential destiny, was deconstructed. Dissolving the premises of the imaginary, Portuguese culture radically reconfigures the conditions of its global inscription.
