Portuguese Literature
The literature of Portugal is distinguished by a wealth and variety of lyric
poetry, which has characterized it from the beginning of its language, after
the Roman occupation; by its wealth of historical writing documenting
Portugal’s
rulers,
conquests,
and
allegorical Renaissance drama of Gil
expansion;
Vicente;
by
by Os
the moral and
Lusíadas (The
Lusiads), the 16th-century national epic of Luís de Camões; by the 19th-
century realist novels of José Maria de Eça de Queirós; by Fernando
Pessoa’s poetry and prose of the 20th century; by a substantial number of
women writers; and by a resurgence in poetry and the novel in the 1970s,
which culminated in José Saramago’s winning the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1998- Other were Sophie Mello Bryner and Lídia Jorge among many
others