According to Ezinesports, the Eighties and the first two years of the Nineties represent for the Portugal a period of great artistic and literary fervor. With the “ carnation revolution ” of April 1974, the long Salazarist parenthesis ended and the libertarian excitement in which the best intelligence in the country had immersed itself after the recovery of the fullness of political and poetic expression finally began. to publish, with the opening of the decade, those new works that the public had unsuccessfully requested in the aftermath of the regained democracy, as if it were enough to open the drawers sealed by censorship to bring out the masterpieces hitherto prohibited. Traditionally people of poets rather than prose writers, essayists and philosophers,
Among the poets there are already established personalities such as Miguel Torga (pseud. Of Adolfo Correia da Rocha, b.1907), whose past as ” rebel Orfeu ” and opponent of the regime now sanctions him as the tutelary deity of national literature (Poetic Anthology, 3rd ed. Augmented, 1985; 15 volumes of the Diary 1941-1990, often rewritten). And again Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (b.1919), considered the greatest national poetess, whose world of classic beauty becomes vibrant after the “ cut ” that history has given to the life of the country, and then recomposes herself in forms of purified, conceptual lyricism (O nome das coisas, 1977; Navegações, 1983; Ilhas, 1989; prose: Contos exemplares, 1962, 1989 2 ; Histórias da terra e do mar, 1984); Eugénio de Andrade (pseud. By José Fontinhas, b.1923), author of a poem-music in which the symbolist tradition marries a latently Iberian “ imagism ”, with echoes of the most authentic national lyric tradition (O outro nome da terra, 1988; Rente ao dizer, 1992, without counting the continuous re-editions of previous works); David Mourão Ferreira (b.1924), poet with a sonorous lyric vein, in which the initial tragic Don Juanism of the Portuguese extends into a skilful versificatory virtuosity (Obra poética 1948-1988, 1988) and then flows into the unprecedented forms of a successful narrative (Um amor feliz, 1986); António Ramos Rosa (b.1924), today one of the most established names as a poet and as a critic of the Portuguese scene (poetry: Matéria de amor, 1983; A rosa esquerda, 1991; A intacta ferida, 1991; critic: A parede azul, 1991); Herberto Helder (b. 1930), who transfers the processes of automatism and ” montage ” typical of early surrealism to a bold experimentalism that does not retreat from the computeristic poetic happening (Ultima ciência, 1988; Poesia toda, 1990 ; in addition to the prose of Os passos em volta, 1963, 5th ed. augmented, 1984); Salette Tavares (b. 1922), whose avant-garde audiovisual experimentalism of the Sixties returns to provoke audiences and critics in our Nineties (Obra poética 1951-71, 1991); EM de Melo e Castro (n. 1932: Trans (a) parências. Poesia. I, 1950-1990, i, 1990), also along the lines of an experimental poetry that is nourished by the example of Brazilian concretists and synaesthesia between the arts and which will come to touch other literary ” operators ” such as Ana Hatherly (n.1929: A cidade das palavras, 1988), who introduces all the recent post-revolutionary irony into the phonovisual legacy of the Iberian baroque, or as a provocative Alberto Pimenta (b.1937: Obra quase incompleta, 1990).
However, there are also the voices of a Manuel Alegre (n. 1937: O Canto e as armas, and Atlântico, 1989), who passes from the libertarian emphasis of post 1974 to the disenchantment of our utilitarian eighties; by a Fernando Assis Pacheco (b.1937), recently established as a narrator with a tasty memorial vein (Trabalhos and paixões de Bento Prada, 1993), but formerly known essentially as an ironic colloquial poet (A Musa irregular, complete poems, 1991). And then again poets-poets such as António Osório (n. 1933: Planetario e zoo dos homens, 1990); Pedro Tamen (b.1934: Dentro de momentos, 1984); Helder Macedo (b. 1935, who, in 1991, will add the memorial novel Partes de África to his already successful poem); Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão (b. 1938: Obra breve, 1991, with alchemical suggestions); Yvette K. Centeno (b. 1940: Perto da terra, 1983); Gastão Cruz (b.1941: Órgão de luzes, 1981); Vasco Graça Moura (b.1942: A sombra das figuras, 1985); Nuno Júdice (b.1949: Enumeração de sombras, 1989; As regras da perspectiva, 1990); Casimiro de Brito (b.1938), author, as well as the Contos da morte eufórica (1984), of a poem with suggestive oriental resonances, Subamente o silêncio (1991); Al-berto (b.1948: O medo, 1987 and 1991). And also poet-philosophers such as Fernando Guimarães (n. 1928: Eva. As mãos inteiras, 1981; A analogia das folhas, 1990).
In these years some of the peculiar voices of this lyric concert disappeared: Alexandre O’Neill (1924-1986), who of the initial surrealist experience had been able to preserve the caustic irony and the experimental and avant-garde formal freedom of the initial surrealist inventions (Poesias completas, 1951-81, 3rd augmented ed., 1990); Natália Correia (1923-1993), poet, playwright and novelist with a corrosive impact on every level of the national reality; Rui Cinatti (1915-1986: Anthology, 1986; Poesias completas 1951-1981, 3rd ed. Rev., 1990); Rui Belo (1933-1978: Obra poética, 1981, of mystical inspiration); Luiza Neto Jorge (1939-1989: A lamp, 1989, posthumously), still linked to the surrealist legacy; Maria Teresa Horta (1939-1989: Os anjos, 1983).
