Echoes of Os Lusíadas in the Ruins of Empire: Anti-Epic in Novels by Contemporary Portuguese Women Writers

• Grant number: 25/01177-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: January 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Portuguese Language
• Principal Investigator: Marcia Maria de Arruda Franco
• Grantee: Larissa Fonseca e Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/15592-8 - Epic, counter-Epic, and anti-utopia: theoretical deepenings of the thesis Echoes of Os Lusíadas in the ruins of the empire, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Epics and novels are two literary genres that, each with its own particularities, shape the national imaginary. When such works become canonized, the process is mutual: they, too, are reshaped over time according to the critical and ideological objectives of the groups that appropriate them, whether to defend or reject a given national identity. The most notable case in Portugal is Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões, published in the spirit of the Renaissance with the aim of exalting Portuguese maritime expansion. The first key text of this research, titled Echoes of Os Lusíadas in the Ruins of Empire: Anti-Epic in Novels by Contemporary Portuguese Women Writers, Camões' epic serves as a horizon for discussing novels published after the 2000s by women writers who, beyond their significance in the Portuguese literary field and their engagement with the theme of the Carnation Revolution and its aftermath, reread Camões. We refer to Lídia Jorge, Margarida Paredes, Isabela Figueiredo, Dulce Maria Cardoso, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, and Yara Nakahanda Monteiro. Each in her own way, they rethink the image and borders of Portugal, foregrounding perspectives from the margins and addressing themes considered unsettling: colonialism, the colonial war, the "retornados", African immigration, racism, women's freedom, sexism, and the fallibility of the capitalist system. Within their works, we have selected those that, through more or less subtle intertextual dialogues with Os Lusíadas, present strong anti-epic markers. If the epic sought to illuminate Portuguese history, what these novels do is highlight the shadows that were already interwoven in Camões' work. Thus, this research not only aims to propose a contemporary rereading of Camões by women but also to emphasize how, through the anti-epic and a questioning of nationality itself, this literature proposes a new Portuguese self-knowledge.