Spanish Literary Canon across Borders: Spanish and Portuguese Literary Fields in Contact (1906-1936)

Portuguese journals and magazines have become an important field of study regarding the reception of Spanish literature across-frontiers in the first three decades of the 20th Century. The aim of this project was, on the one hand, to explore a selection of cultural and literary papers such as Ilustração, Civilização or O Diabo, along with the survey of specific dates and periods in daily titles as O Comércio do Porto, Diário de Notícias or Diário de Lisboa; on the other, to analyze the data offered by this corpus regarding the relationship between Spanish and Portuguese literary fields and agents.

As a result of this survey, we have obtained a wide corpus of materials, summing up close to a thousand references regarding the relationship between Spanish and Portuguese cultural fields: artistic, dramatic and literary reviews and articles; translations of Spanish authors; book advertisements; interviews to writers, editors, journalist and actors. From well-known writers such as Unamuno, Blasco Ibáñez, Valle-Inclán, Benavente, the Álvarez Quintero brothers, Fernández Flórez, Antonio Zozaya, Alberto Insúa, Rivas Cherif or Victoriano García Martí, to journalists like Sánchez Albornoz or Carmen de Burgos or actresses as María Guerrero or Rosario Pino.

The whole of this alternative corpus speaks of the deep impact of the political situation in Portugal´s literary field, and, consequently, of a constant redefinition of its parameters in a time when the contacts and transit of agents from both sides of the border become highly frequent and worthwhile during the 1920s and 1930s. As a result of this flux, Spanish literary field becomes a model for Portuguese agents searching to solve those systemic deficits which are also projected in the pages of newspapers and magazines: the theatre crisis, the relationship between the literary and the journalistic fields, the impact of translation or literary prizes as dynamizing elements, the participation and role of women, the development of a legislation about the rights of authors and theatre people, or even the models of publishing business in force. All this issues become central to the redefinition of Portuguese literary field, along with the debate about the so-called “literary nationalism” in Portugal when confronted to a more comprehensive concept as “iberism”.

In this scenario, a wide range of agents reflect about Portuguese literary field deficit, and names as Joaquim Novais Teixeira, João Ameal, Júlio Dantas, Fidelino de Figueiredo, Armando Boaventura, António Ferro or Belo Redondo emerge as an essential part of this dialogue across-borders.