Travel Literature

Objectives

1. To increase the student’s literary culture, integrating it in his/her personal relationship with the world;

2. To distinguish between travel literature and the literary use of travel and of its poetic values (travel literature and the poetics of travel);

3. To improve criteria for aesthetic and literary critique evaluation;

4. To acquire methodology and concepts from literary studies;

5. To think the texts taking under consideration the time and circumstances in which they were produced and read;

6. To decentre and attach value to alterity, through the confrontation with perspectives from different parts of the world and different ages;

7. To perceive the richness of meaning possibilities offered by the literary code;

8. To perceive the features of originality of Portuguese culture.

Program

1. Travelling as a literary subject. Symbolic and cultural values. The traveller’s psychology. The transformations undergone by the subject due to literary history: travel as evasion, as exile, as a way to get to know the world and yourself. World representation in travel literature.

2. Travel and exile, the fusion of space and time.

3. Travel as a narrative technique.

4. The establishment of “travel literature” as a literary typology. Some genres included in the concept.

5. “Travel literature” corpus in Portugal. Characteristics, classification proposal, main authors and works. Comparison with literature from other European countries.

6. Travelling in the XVI and XVII century. “Travel literature” in XVI and XVII century Portuguese literature. The discoveries and the maritime expansion, History and Literature: lyrism, satire, the epic poem.

7. The importance of some travellers in Portuguese literary history. Writers, characters and myths.

Teaching Methodologies

According to the study plan, classes are theoretical and theoretical-practical. Whenever possible, theoretical exposition will be accompanied by examples through comments on texts, literary, critical or doctrinaire, and of documents from other forms of artistic expression. Excerpts from the recommended literary works will be subjected to analysis in class, in a work which will combine the Professor’s comment with individual or group work, under the Professor’s guidance.

Bibliography

Gil Vicente: Auto da Índia (séc. XVI)

Pero Vaz de Caminha: Carta do Achamento do Brasil (séc. XVI)

Padre António Vieira: Carta ao Padre Provincial do Brasil, de 1654, in Cartas, coord. e notas de J. Lúcio de Azevedo, vol. I, Lisboa, Imprensa

Nacional – Casa da Moeda, 1997 (séc. XVII)

História Trágico-Marítima: “0 naufrágio do Galeão S. João”, ed. de Giulia Lanciani, in Sucessos e Naufrágios das Naus Portuguesas, Lisboa,

Caminho, 1997 (séc. XVI)

Almeida Garrett: Viagens na Minha Terra (séc. XIX)

Raúl Brandão: Ilhas Desconhecidas (séc. XX)