The Evolution of Portuguese Narrative: From Galicia to Culturalism

The Evolution of Portuguese Narrative

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Portuguese narrative demonstrated a clear shift away from traditional forms and themes. This gave rise to a new narrative called Galicia.

Breaking with Tradition

The new narrative focused on breaking traditional arguments, abandoning linear chronology in favor of the interior monologue. It presented anonymous characters, outcasts, and misfits prone to violence and self-destruction. Through these characters, the narrative explored the absurdity of existence, the hidden aggression of human beings, and the influence of the subconscious.

Key Authors of the Movement

Critics include the following authors in this movement:

• Jose Luis Mendez Ferrin
• Carlos Casares
• Johan Torres
• Gonzalo Rodriguez
• Camilo Gons

Ferrín's Contribution

Ferrín's work can be divided into stages:

1. An initial step within the New Narrative movement, with books like Percival Tales and Other Stories, The Twilight and the Ants, and The Northern Suburb.

2. A second stage in the 1970s, more focused on offering a political interpretation of an imaginary nation, using Tagen Ata as a metaphor for Galicia itself (Return to Tagen Ata).

3. Since 1980, Ferrín's narrative combines recreating the Matter of Britain, political commitment, and recovery of memory from Franco's repression (Love Arthur, Arnoia, Arnoia, Arraiano, In the Womb of Silence).

Casares' Contribution

Casares' work also evolved through stages:

1. A first step linked to the renewal of the new narrative. His works reflect, in an autobiographical mode, the Portuguese society of the Franco regime (Wind Injured, Toys for a Prohibited Time).

2. A second step in recovering a more traditional narrative approach (Ilustradísima, The Sun of Summer).

Themes in Casares' Work

Common themes include characters frustrated by intolerance, violence, or social hypocrisy, with humor and tenderness used to portray the inner world of the characters.

Neira Vilas' Contribution

Neira Vilas' work emphasizes a despairing vision of peasant society, marked by poverty, social prejudice, and violence. Regarding emigration, he denounces the injustices it causes: anxiety, longing, and the everyday struggle to escape misery, as seen in Stories of Immigrants.

Cultural Themes and Aestheticism

The narrative adopts themes such as the experience of love, eroticism, nostalgia for childhood, reflections on loneliness and death, the transience of time, and beauty. Culturalism favors the thematic relationship between all the arts, with numerous references to aesthetic manifestations such as film, music, and visual arts.

The poetry of the 1980s favored the creation and consolidation of literary awards, the publishing of poetry magazines like Dorna, and the creation of poetry collections. Among the most important poets are Pilar Pallares, Ana Romania, Xela Arias, Fernão Velho, Manuel Rivas, and Johan Dario Hut.

Aestheticism is predominant, with a conscious search for formal elegance in the poem and a taste for baroque vocabulary and worship.