Portuguese: Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

FACULTY OF
MEDIEVAL AND MODERN

LANGUAGES
PORTUGUESE
Final Honours School Handbook
I NFORMATION FOR STUDENTS

WHO START THEIR FHS COURSE IN O CTOBER 2011
AND EXPECT TO BE TAKING THE
FHS EXAMINATION IN T RINITY T ERM 2014
PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE
The Finals Honours course in Portuguese aims to develop an active and passive command of
correct spoken and written Portuguese at an advanced level, with some appreciation of the
differences between the European and Brazilian norms, and different stylistic registers. This is
done by means of regular compulsory classes in translation to and from Portuguese,
instruction in writing essays in Portuguese, grammar classes as needed, and classes allowing
you to work through a range of oral/aural exercises.
In the examinations for the Final Honour School, all those reading Portuguese take the
following language papers:
Paper I Prose Composition and Essay
Paper II A Unseen translation (from European Portuguese)

Paper II B Unseen translation (from Brazilian Portuguese)
Oral Examination – which consists of an aural comprehension

exercise, and discourse and conversation in Portuguese.
Undergraduates reading Portuguese sole must also take Paper III (Year Abroad Project and
Translation from Older Forms of Portuguese).
Paper I: Translation into Portuguese and Essay
Classes in translation from English into Portuguese, which undergraduates are required to
attend throughout the course, are organized centrally. Tuition for this subject will help you to
handle more complex syntactical structures, acquire a richer active vocabulary and gain a
command of abstract written Portuguese, as well as of narrative and descriptive prose.
For the Essay, instruction is provided in the form of classes, organized in small groups.
Tuition in this subject is designed to enable you to address sophisticated political and cultural
issues in clear, coherent, and complex Portuguese.
Paper II A and II B: Translation from Portuguese (European and Brazilian)
Classes in translation from Portuguese into English, which undergraduates are required to
attend throughout the course, are organized centrally. These classes help you advance your
command of textual analysis and stylistics. Translation from Portuguese into English is an
extremely useful training in the use of your own language to convey complex ideas and states
of mind.
Paper III: Year Abroad Project and Translation from Older forms of Portuguese into
English
Paper III is for candidates offering Portuguese sole. It has two components.
The first is an essay in Portuguese, of 3000 to 3500 words, done during the year
abroad. The Year Abroad Project will consist of an analysis of the ways in which a particular
topic or event is covered in the national and/ or local media during the candidate's stay in the
foreign country. The essay will have to be supported by appendices containing copies of all
the primary media material used (in the form of the press or radio/ television broadcasts).
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In the first term of your year abroad, you will consult with a relevant tutor over the
suitability of your choice of topic. He or she will also comment on a first draft of the essay, to
be sent in before end of May of your year abroad. The completed Year Abroad Project should
then be submitted at the end of week zero in Michaelmas Term of your Final Year.
The second half of the paper, Translation from Older forms of Portuguese, is unseen
translation of texts from medieval and sixteenth-century Portuguese. It is examined by a 1½-
hour examination paper, in which you have to translate one of two texts. You will receive
tuition for this paper in the course of your final year.
The Oral Examination
Classes in oral Portuguese are given on a weekly basis by the Portuguese and Brazilian
Language Assistants throughout the second and final years of the course. In the final year, the
Language Assistants provide practice in the aural comprehension exercise for the oral
examination in the Final Honour School, and there are individual practice sessions for the
prepared discourse exercise.
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THE FINAL HONOURS SCHOOL:
DESCRIPTION OF LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY PAPERS
PAPER IV:
LINGUISTIC STUDIES I: THE HISTORY AND STRUCTURE OF THE

PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE
1. Introduction.
This Paper provides an introduction to the Descriptive Linguistics of Modern Portuguese, and
of the historical development of the modern forms of Portuguese in Portugal, Brazil, Africa
and Asia. You are expected to acquire basic skills of phonetic transcription and syntactic
analysis, and to understand the basic principles of Linguistics as applied to Portuguese. You
are expected to follow lecture courses in General Linguistics as well as lectures devoted to
Portuguese.
2. Course content,
The principal topics covered by the course are: Portuguese phonetics and phonology (with
special reference to vowel quality, stress and vowel reduction, nasality); Portuguese
morphology (verb morphology and stem alternations; noun inflection; derivational
morphology); Portuguese syntax (noun phrases; verb complementation; tense and aspect;
mood); the sociolinguistics and dialectology of the Portuguese-speaking world; the
Portuguese lexicon - word fields, lexical expansion; forms of address in Portugal and Brazil.
3. Teaching.
Central elements of the course are covered by lectures in each term. These are organised in a
four-year cycle, so that different topics will be covered in your second and final years.
Lecture attendance during these two years is an important part of the course. If you have not
taken the Linguistics course in the Prelim, you are strongly advised to attend lectures in the
Foundation Course in Linguistics in your second year. You undertake a series of eight
tutorials, usually spread over two terms in the Second and Final Year to enable you to benefit
from a developing understanding of linguistic theory and method, and to apply it to the
experience of your Year Abroad. In these tutorials you will have the option of giving greater
or lesser weight to practical phonetic and syntactic analysis or issues of linguistic theory.
Assessment is by a three hour written paper.
PAPER V
VARIETIES OF PORTUGUESE
1. Introduction.
This Paper applies the tools of Linguistics to the description of different forms of Modern
Portuguese. You are expected to follow lecture courses in General Linguistics as well as
lectures devoted to Portuguese.
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2. Course content.
The course focuses on the description of the main varieties of Portuguese, including European
Portuguese and its dialects, Brazilian Portuguese and its dialects, the Portuguese of Africa,
and Portuguese-based creoles. Principal topics covered by the course are: systems of
phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon; the sociolinguistics and
dialectology of the Portuguese-speaking world; Brazilian and European Portuguese; creoles
and creolisation.
3. Teaching.
Central elements of the linguistic analysis are covered by the lectures for paper IV, which are
organised in a four-year cycle, so that different topics will be covered in your second and final
years. Lecture attendance during these two years is an important part of the course. If you
have not taken the Linguistics course in the Prelim, you are strongly advised to attend lectures
in the Foundation Course in Linguistics in your second year. You undertake a series of eight
tutorials, usually spread over two terms in the Second and Final Year to enable you to benefit
from a developing understanding of linguistic theory and method, and to apply it to the
experience of your Year Abroad. Assessment is by a three-hour written paper, which will
combine essays and linguistic commentary.
PAPER VI:
PORTUGUESE LITERATURE TO 1540
1. Course content.
This Paper studies Portuguese and Galician-Portuguese Literature from the earliest texts (c.
1200) to 1540. The central elements are the poetry of the Galician-Portuguese Cancioneiros
and the Cantigas de Santa Maria; the historical prose of Fernão Lopes and Zurara, and its
origins in early chronicles and the Livros de Linhagens; the early theatre and Gil Vicente;
Arthurian Romances and the pastoral novel Menina e Moça; the poetry of the Cancioneiro
Geral. There are no set texts. You are expected to read widely in all genres of the period and
to acquire a good knowledge of the cultural and historical background of Hispanic and
European medieval literature.
2. Teaching.
You attend the lectures that are given for Paper IX, namely introductory lectures on Medieval
Literature in the Michaelmas Term of your Second Year, and a series of lectures on the four
Paper IX set texts spread over the Second and Final Year. When the class is known to include
paper VI candidates, the compass of these lectures is broadened accordingly. Each student
undertakes a series of eight tutorials, usually spread over two terms, in which individual
topics are explored in depth.
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PAPER VII:
PORTUGUESE LITERATURE 1500-1697
1. Course content.
This paper is now mostly concerned with the group of extraordinarily talented writers who
were born roughly between 1470 and 1535. You will study their imaginative response to the
most exciting and important events of Portuguese history, the discovery of new lands (to
Europeans) in Africa and Asia. You will also be able to see how the new philosophical and
aesthetic ideas of the Renaissance changed writers’ responses to the dominant themes of the
literature of all times: God, money, and sex.
The course starts and ends with Camões, the greatest of all writers in Portuguese. We begin
with Os Lusíadas, the central text of Portuguese literature, which tells the story of the first
voyage to India and, in doing so, explores the heights and depths of which humanity is
capable. Your final assignment will be to read a selection of his lyric poems, in which he
explores his personal difficulties with great rhetorical force, using an extraordinarily wide
range of poetic forms to do so. In between you will read some of the following:
 Works about the new worlds the Portuguese had revealed to Europeans, and the impact of
the overseas adventure on life in Portugal, by Fernão Mendes Pinto, Damião de Góis, and
Sá de Miranda;
 Books in which writers grapple with the religious, economic and sexual aspects of human
behaviour by Gil Vicente, Bernardim Ribeiro, and António Ferreira.
The course allows you to read extensively in all forms of literature: prose, verse, and drama.
2. Teaching
About 8 tutorial hours are available for this paper, spread over two terms. Lectures are given
on: Literature and the Discoveries; God, Money and Sex in Sixteenth-Century Literature;
Camões; Drama in the Sixteenth Century. Assessment is by a 3 hour written paper.
PAPER VIII:
This paper allows you to familiarise yourself with the literature and culture of the modern
period in Portugal and/or Brazil (in practice most students choose to study writers from both
countries). The starting point is usually one of the major canonical writers in each country:
Machado de Assis in the case of Brazil and Eça de Queirós or Fernando Pessoa in the case of
Portugal. Students then select from a wide range of topics and/or authors (with the additional
possibility of including some African authors) such as the following:
The 19th century construction of Brazilian national identity (José de Alencar, Machado de
Assis, Aluísio de Azevedo);
Modernism and the Quest for Brasilidade (Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, Manuel
Bandeira, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, João Cabral de Melo Neto)
City and Sertão in Brazilian Fiction (Graciliano Ramos, Rachel de Queiroz, Jorge Amado,
Guimarães Rosa);
Contemporary Fiction: Dictatorship and Beyond (Clarice Lispector, Lygia Fagundes
Telles, Paulo Lins, Conceição Evaristo, Milton Hatoum, Adriana Lisboa).
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Images of Portuguese Society in 19th century Literature (Almeida Garrett, Camilo Castelo
Branco, Eça de Queirós, Cesário Verde);
Poetry and the literary avant-garde (António Nobre, Sá-Carneiro, Fernando Pessoa,
Florbela Espanca);
Contemporary fiction during the Dictatorship (Irene Lisboa, Carlos de Oliveira, Vergílio
Ferreira);
Contemporary fiction after the Revolution (José Saramago, Lídia Jorge, Maria Gabriela
Llansol, António Lobo Antunes)
The literature of colonial and post-colonial Mozambique: (Luis Bernardo Honwana, Mia
Couto, Paulina Chiziane, Lília Momplé).
2. Teaching
About 8 tutorial hours are available for this paper, spread over two terms. Lectures are given
on Eça de Queirós, Machado de Assis, Fernando Pessoa, Literature and society in Portugal,
Modern Brazilian Literature. Assessment is by a 3 hour written paper.
PAPER IX:
MEDIEVAL PRESCRIBED TEXTS
1. Course content.
This Paper gives an introduction to Portuguese medieval literature by the detailed study of
extracts from two major bodies of work from the medieval period, namely the poetry of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the historical prose of the fifteenth century. The set
texts are:
E. Gonçalves and M.A. Ramos A Lírica Galego-Portuguesa, Lisbon 1985

W. Mettmann Cantigas de Santa Maria de D. Afonso X el Sabio Madrid (Castalia), vol I
Fernão Lopes Crónica de D. João I (extracts ed. T. Amado) Lisbon, Seara Nova.
G. E de Zurara Crónica da Guiné chaps 1-25 (no edition specified: we recommend the ed.
by T. de Sousa Soares)
You are expected to be acquainted with the broad features of the work, corpus or genre from
which the texts are drawn, and with the general features of medieval Hispanic literature.
2. Teaching.
You attend introductory lectures in the Michaelmas Term of your Second Year and a series of
lectures on the four texts spread over the Second and Final Year. You will also have eight
tutorials; usually spread over two terms in the Second and Final Year. Revision tutorials, on
textual commentary and general problems of medieval texts, are offered during the Final
Year.
3. Examination
In the examination you will have three hours to answer three questions, covering at least three
of the set texts. You must write a commentary on a short passage extracted from one of the
texts, and two essays on different individual set texts or on aspects of medieval literature
present in several texts.
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PAPERS X AND XI:
PRESCRIBED AUTHORS
These papers, which will usually be spread over two terms of your Second and Final Year, are
designed to complement the broader sweep of the period course by providing an opportunity
to concentrate on an in-depth the work of two (for each paper) of the most celebrated
Portuguese and Brazilian writers from the Renaissance onwards. You will read widely within
the oeuvre of each author, set them in their intellectual and historical contexts, and study
closely a smaller number of central works with a view to detailed textual analysis.
Texts Prescribed for Special Study
The Examination Decrees set out in detail which part of an author’s work are set for special
study: this means that in the examination you can expect passages for commentary only from
these specified works. Essays, however, will give you the opportunity to show your
knowledge of the authors beyond these works.
Examination
In the examination you will have three hours to answer three questions. You must write an
essay on each of your two authors and a commentary on one orother of them.
PAPER X
RENAISSANCE PRESCRIBED AUTHORS
1. Gil Vicente (c. 1465-c.1536)
1. Course content
The Prelims course will have given you an introduction to Gil Vicente’s work. Astonishingly
varied in subject matter, form and tone, his short plays give a fascinating insight into the
social, political and religious preoccupations of early modern Portugal. Among the vast range
of characters created by Gil Vicente there stand out his peasants and his women, the former
tough in the face of adversity, the latter independent and defiant of every law of God and man.
Set texts: Auto da Alma, Auto da Feira, Farsa de Inês Pereira, Dom Duardos, Farsa dos
Almocreves, Triunfo do Inverno
2. Teaching.
The core teaching consists of four tutorials on each author (usually 3 essays and some
commentary work). Lectures are regularly given on Gil Vicente and on other aspects of
sixteenth-century drama.
3. Examination
You will be required to write one essay on one or more aspects of this author’s work from a
choice of four titles. In addition you will have to write a commentary on a passage from one
of the texts prescribed for special study of either this author or your other chosen author.
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2. João de Barros (1496-c.1570)
1. Course content
Barros was the official historian of the Portuguese explorations and conquests in Africa and
Asia. His Décadas, conceived on a global scale, are one of the first manifestations of
European imperialism, but also reveal a humanistic interest in the lands and peoples of the
East. In Ropicapnefma Barros reveals the religious problems of his own country at a time
when Christianity was still competing with Islam and with Judaism.
Set texts: Décadas, ed. A. Baião (Vol. 1 only), Rópica Pnefma
2. Teaching.
commentary work). Lectures are regularly given on the literature of the Portuguese
Discoveries.
3. Examination
3. Luís de Camões (c.1524-1580)
1. Course content
The epic poem Os Lusíadas is the central text of Portuguese literature. Far more than just the
narrative of the first voyage to India, Camões’s poem explores the problematic of the
Discoveries from a multiplicity of points of view. His lyric poems (of which you read a
selection) incorporate incidents from his own adventurous life in Lisbon and in India and
record with unmatched power his emotional turmoil and his intellectual doubts and
convictions.
Set texts: Os Lusíadas, Líricas (ed. R. Lapa)
2. Teaching.
commentary work). Lectures are regularly given on Os Lusíadas and on aspects of sixteenth-
century lyric poetry.
3. Examination
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4. António Ferreira (1528-1569)
1. Course content.
Ferreira’s verse tragedy Castro is, with Os Lusíadas, the supreme expression of Portuguese
classicism. In it he explores, with great psychological penetration, the relationship between
justice and political expediency, taking as his point of departure the murder in the fourteenth
century of Inês de Castro, the mistress of the heir to the throne. The remainder of the Poemas
Lusitanos reveals above all the humanistic concern with the necessity of culture in a country
preoccupied with the social changes that had arisen as a consequence of the Discoveries.
There is an opportunity too to explore classical comedy in Bristo and Cioso.
Set Texts: Bristo, Cioso, Poemas Lusitanos (incl. Castro)
2. Teaching.
commentary work). Lectures on Ferreira regularly form part of the course given on sixteenth-
century drama and lyric poetry.
3. Examination
5. D. Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608-1666)
1. Course content
With Melo’s multifarious and witty writings you will enter the world of seventeenth-century
aristocratic court culture. You will come across Melo the historian (Epanáfora política),
analysing the revolt which led to the re-establishment of Portuguese independence from Spain
in 1640, the observer of current affairs (Relógios falantes and Carta de guia de casados, first
translated into English as early as 1697), the literary critic (Hospital das letras) and comic
dramatist (O fidalgo aprendiz, possibly one of the sources of Molière’s Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme).
2. Teaching.
commentary work).
3. Examination
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PAPER XI
MODERN PRESCRIBED AUTHORS
1. Almeida Garrett (1799-1854)
1. Course content.
Garrett was the foremost Portuguese writer of the Romantic period. He was also an active
politician, and in his novels and plays (especially in the famous tragedy Frei Luís de Sousa)
he explores the effects on individuals of political change. You will also have the opportunity
of reading Garrett’s highly perceptive account of the state of early nineteenth-century Europe,
Portugal na balança da Europa, and the very intimate verse collection, Folhas caídas.
Set Texts: Portugal na balança da Europa, Frei Luís de Sousa, O arco de Sant'Anna, Viagens
na minha terra, Folhas caídas
2. Teaching.
commentary work). There are lectures on Garrett in the Prelim course and also as part of
survey courses on nineteenth-century literature.
3. Examination
2. Eça de Queirós (1845-1900)
1. Course content.
Observant, witty and profoundly human, Eça is easily Portugal’s best-known novelist. You
will be expected to know in detail the early Naturalistic masterpiece O crime do Padre
Amaro, Os Maias, perhaps Eça’s greatest work, and the late novel A cidade e as serras, in
which he shifts his gaze from the urban scene of Paris to the countryside of Portugal. Eça is
irrestistibly readable and you will be encouraged to explore his work beyond the texts set for
special study.
2. Teaching.
commentary work). There are regular courses of lectures on Eça.
3. Examination
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3. Machado de Assis (1839-1908)
1. Course content.
Machado was the greatest novelist produced by Brazil in the nineteenth century. His work is
fascinatingly different from Eça’s, and a comparison between the two writers forms a most
rewarding exercise. Machado’s daringly experimental novels, his complex irony and his
profound understanding of flawed human personality foreshadow many developments of
twentieth-century fiction. The set texts are the three great novels of Machado’s maturity,
Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, Quincas Borba, and Dom Casmurro.
2. Teaching.
commentary work). There are regular courses of lectures on Machado.
3. Examination
4. Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)
1. Course content
Pessoa is the best-known Portuguese poet of the twentieth century and one whose exploration
of disintegrating personality has made a great impact abroad. The poems set for special study
constitute a small but representative sample of Pessoa’s versatile adoption of different literary
masks. They include two diametrically opposed types of verse published under his own name:
a selection of his most famous lyric poetry, contained in volume 1 of the Ática edition, and
Mensagem, which provides an interpretation of Portuguese history. Nevertheless, any study of
Pessoa needs to take in the poetry he attributed to his heteronyms (the many alternative
personalities that, according to him, existed within himself). The work of Álvaro de Campos,
his most prolific and dramatic heteronym, is selected as a set text to exemplify his uncanny
ability to express himself as ‘other’.
2. Teaching.
commentary work). There are regular courses of lectures on Pessoa.
3. Examination
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5. Graciliano Ramos (1892-1953)
1. Course content
Graciliano was the greatest novelist of the Brazilian North-East; the region of the country
which was first settled by Europeans and which by the mid-twentieth century was in a period
of long-term decline. Graciliano’s bleakly deterministic fiction explores the tensions between
rich and poor, urban and rural, at a time of great social change. In what is perhaps his
masterpiece, Vidas secas, he contrives to portray the mindset of a family of illiterate farm-
workers, forced off the land by drought and oppression. Graciliano’s own life provided much
of the raw material of his writing, and it is particularly interesting to compare the different
treatment he gave to this material in his novels and in the avowedly autobiographical Infância.
Set texts: Caetés, Angústia, Vidas secas, Infância
2. Teaching.
commentary work). Lectures on Graciliano are included in courses on the Brazilian novel of
the Northeast.
3. Examination
6. Clarice Lispector (1920-1977)
1. Course content
Clarice Lispector’s challenging, philosophical and psychologically charged literature has

gained her a devoted readership both in Brazil and more internationally. Ostensibly, her multi-
faceted novels are concerned with the issues facing women in modern urban society, but they
also deal with more metaphysical, existential problems. Deceptively simple, her writing
eschews conventional syntax, grammar and a linear structure, in favour of streams-of-
consciousness, in her efforts to capture reality and emotion through language.
Set Texts: Perto do Coração Selvagem, A Paixão segundo G.H., and A Hora da Estrela
2. Teaching.
commentary work). Lectures on Clarice are included in courses on women’s writing.
3. Examination
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7. Mia Couto (b 1955 - )
1. Course content
Mia Couto is arguably the most prominent post-colonial Mozambican writer alive today. His
fiction blends fact and fantasy, to create a cathartic interpretation of Mozambique’s recent
history. The prescribed texts take in both the damaging civil war in the aftermath of
independence, on which his collection of short stories Vozes anoitecidas centres, and the
emergent peace process from the ninety nineties onwards, which forms the backdrop of his
seminal novels Terra sonâmbula and A varanda do frangipani.
2. Teaching
commentary work). Lectures on Mia Couto are included in the courses on The Literature of
Portuguese-speaking Africa.
3. Examination
PAPER XII:
SPECIAL SUBJECTS
The Special Subjects, of which there is a wide range, vary enormously in nature. They allow
you to follow up in detail some aspect of one of your other papers that has particularly
interested you. Alternatively, they allow you to branch out and do something quite different
from your work on other papers. In short, they may complement, or contrast with, the work
you have done elsewhere in your course. These courses are normally taught in Hilary Term of
your final year. For information on regulations and deadlines, see the Faculty website. Advice
on how to format your Special Subject essays and bibliographies is available in the General
Faculty Handbook
The list below gives those Subjects which are the responsibility of the Portuguese Sub-Faculty
and also those in which, if you wish, you may combine Portuguese with Spanish-language
topics.
2114 S, P. Latin-American Fiction from 1940
This subject allows you to explore the evolution of Latin American fiction from the 1940’s
through the ‘Boom’ and up to the present day. In the process you will undertake the
specialised study of at least three authors. The Brazilian authors are Jorge Amado, João
Guimarães Rosa and Clarice Lispector. The Spanish American ones are Jorge Luis Borges,
Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortázar, Fernando del Paso, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez,
and Mario Vargas Llosa. For this paper you will be examined by a portfolio of essays.
2130 P. The Galician-Portuguese Cancioneiros

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This paper comprises a close study of the Galician-Portuguese lyric, as preserved in the
Cancioneiros (Cancioneiro da Ajuda, Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional, Cancioneiro da
Vaticana) and more recently discovered fragments, and the manuscripts of the Cantigas de
Santa Maria.You are expected to arrive at an appreciation of the history and composition of
the Cancioneiros, the division into genres of the Galician-Portuguese lyric, and the questions
of origins, authorship and attribution. You will follow the lectures provided for Portuguese
Papers VI and IX (Introduction to Medieval Literature; the Galician-Portuguese
Cancioneiros; The Cantigas de Santa Maria). For this paper you will be examined by a
portfolio of essays.
2131 P. The Portuguese Expansion in Asia
The arrival of Vasco da Gama in India in 1498 was one of the most important moments in
world history. This course looks at a series of texts which are indispensable for understanding
the growth and decline of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia. Exactly which texts you
will study will depend on your previous reading. This paper will be an opportunity for you to
get to know literary works like Os Lusíadas and the Peregrinação of Fernão Mendes Pinto if
you have not already done so. But you can go straight to the historical literature. You could
start with João de Barros’s epic account of the first voyage to India and compare it to Álvaro
Velho’s very different but first-hand narrative. Albuquerque’s letters, and his son’s reworking
of them into continuous narrative, tell of battles won and lost, and also of the administrative
difficulties of controlling a chain of forts which led from Africa to the Far East. The narratives
of the Tragic History of the Sea (História Trágico-Marítima) are tales of shipwreck which can
be read as sensational popular literature or as criticism of the aristocrats who commanded the
Portuguese fleets. When in 1543 a typhoon blew a Portuguese ship navigating the South
China seas hundreds of miles to the north to Tanegashima Island in Japan, a new and
unexpected encounter was born. Soon, both merchants and missionaries were travelling
regularly to the country that Marco Polo had referred to as ‘Zipangu’ in his Il Milione. As
news of the ‘discovery’ of Japan reached Europe, hundreds of books were published in
various languages with the reports and correspondence of the Portuguese and other Europeans
who travelled with them. They were eager to describe their perceptions of and experiences
with Japanese people and culture. You will read some of these sixteenth-century ‘best-
sellers’, including excerpts from authors such as Luís Fróis and João Rodrigues, who were
pioneers in observing and studying early modern Japan. This is very much a paper where you
can follow your own interests, and no one will be expected to have studied all the topics
mentioned. For this paper you will be examined by a portfolio of essays.
2129 P. Portuguese Drama in the Sixteenth Century
Portuguese drama in the sixteenth century is much more than the few plays by Vicente and
Ferreira that you read for the Prelim or Paper VII. Gil Vicente himself wrote nearly 40 plays
in a great variety of styles, and this paper will give you an opportunity of getting to know
some of them better. If you are interested in popular theatre you can read works by the black
African dramatist Afonso Álvares or by António Prestes and António Ribeiro Chiado. There
is also much more to neo-classical theatre than the Castro. The neo-classical comedies of
Ferreira (Bristo and Cioso) and of Sá de Miranda (Os Estrangeiros and Os Vilhalpandos) are
beginning to become available in good editions and provide an unusual vision of early
modern society. Camões was an interesting dramatist and the Auto de Filodemo is an
ingenious fusion of classical and popular styles. There is a good edition by Vanda Anastácio
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(Porto: Caixotim, 2005). Finally there are the numerous plays written by the Jesuits, of which
Luís da Cruz, Prodigus, is an accessible example (with translation into Portuguese). For this
paper you will be examined by a portfolio of essays.
2134 P. Twentieth-century Portuguese and Brazilian women writers
The course will invite you to think about women writers in a variety of twentieth century
socio-political contexts (republic, dictatorship, democracy) and geographical locations (Brazil
and Portugal). This course will complement your knowledge of the modern period, by
allowing you to re-visit it from a woman-centred perspective. Over six tutorials, you will
undertake the specialised study of several authors, chosen in consultation with your tutor
(they might include the Portuguese Florbela Espanca, Irene Lisboa, Hélia Correia, Olga
Gonçalves, Maria Gabriela Llansol and Lídia Jorge, and/or the Brazilians Rachel de Queiroz,
Carolina Maria de Jesus, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Clarice Lispector and Adriana Lisboa). Ever
mindful of differing literary practices and social concerns, we will nevertheless attempt to
identify some of the common thematic and stylistic features at work in the writings of these
women. For this paper you will be examined by a portfolio of essays.
2135 P. The Literature of Portuguese-speaking Africa
This course provides you with the opportunity to study a selection of major prose writers,
over six tutorials, normally chosen from the following list: from Angola, Pepetela and
Ondjaki; from Mozambique, Luis Bernardo Honwana, Mia Couto and Lília Momplé, and
from Cape Verde, Baltasar Lopes, Orlanda Amarílis. The literature of Portuguese-Speaking
Africa is strongly committed to examining the pressing social and political issues facing its
people in recent history. Simultaneously, it is undeniable that the questioning and re-
presentations which arise out of this wide-ranging body of works are conveyed through a
number of sophisticated literary techniques. We will therefore study these writers a view to
understanding how their individual style allows each of them to convey country-specific and
powerful insights into the colonial and post-colonial periods. For this paper you will be
examined by a portfolio of essays.
2136 P. Contemporary Brazilian Literature
This course will allow you to explore current trends and new voices in recent Brazilian prose
fiction, focusing on how it engages with the country’s post-dictatorship experience and with
pressing social questions, such as urban violence and poverty, which affect Brazilian society
today. You will study established contemporary writers such as João Gilberto Noll, Milton
Hatoum, Bernardo Carvalho, Luiz Ruffatto and Adriana Lisboa. In addition, the course will
survey the output originating from traditionally marginalized sections of Brazilian society, the
inhabitants of the favelas being a case in point. The course will include a study of Paulo
Lins’s acclaimed novel Cidade de Deus, which paved the way for this so-called literatura
marginal, deeply associated with contemporary Brazilian counterculture (including hip-hop
and cyberliterature), as well as works by Conceição Evaristo and Ferréz. For this paper you
will be examined by a portfolio of essays.
15
2139 P. Brazilian Cinema
This course will allow you to develop the skills for the critical analysis of film and examine
the evolution of Brazilian cinema since the 1950s. You will explore major movements in the
history of Brazilian cinema, such as the highly political and groundbreaking Cinema Novo
movement of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as more recent productions which have emerged
since the so-called renaissance, or retomada, of Brazilian cinema of the 1990s. The course
will consider representations of history, national identity, race, class and gender in a selection
of films, normally chosen from the following list: Rio, 40 Graus (Nelson Pereira dos Santos,
1955), Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Glauber Rocha, 1964), Como era Gostoso o meu
Francês (Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1971), Bye Bye Brasil (Carlos Diegues, 1980), Eles não
Usam Black-Tie (Leon Hirszman, 1981), Como Nascem os Anjos (Murilo Salles, 1996), O
Primeiro Dia (Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, 1998), Domésticas (Fernando Meirelles
and Nando Olival, 2001), Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002) and
Ônibus 174 (José Padilha, 2002). For this paper you will be examined by a portfolio of essays.
For regulations please consult the General FHS Handbook.
The University has three offices, the two Proctors and the Assessor, held by members of the colleges
in rotation for one year at a time, who have a University-wide role of ombudsman. The Proctors have
particular responsibility for University student discipline and formal complaints, while the Assessor is
concerned with student welfare and support. You should refer to the Proctors’ and Assessor’s
Memorandum, available from the University Offices or your college, for information about such
matters (http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/epsc/guidance/index.shtml).
The University's Complaints and Appeals template may be downloaded in Word or PDF
versions for inclusion in student handbooks.
WHEN DRAWING UP THIS HANDBOOK WE HAVE TRIED TO BE AS ACCURATE

AND CLEAR AS POSSIBLE, BUT REMEMBER THAT IT IS ONLY AN INFORMAL
GUIDE. THE REVISED EDITION OF THE UNIVERSITY’S EXAMINATION
DECREES AND REGULATIONS WILL BE THE OFFICIAL AUTHORITATIVE
SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND YOU SHOULD CHECK ALL DETAILS IN YOUR
COPY OF THAT PUBLICATION.
COURSES AND REGULATIONS ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER REVIEW, SO ALWAYS

CHECK ALSO WITH YOUR COLLEGE TUTOR TO CONFIRM WHAT IS WRITTEN
HERE. IN ADDITION, DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK FOR CLARIFICATION ABOUT
THE COURSE FROM ANY MEMBER OF THE SUB-FACULTY WHO IS LECTURING
TO YOU OR TUTORING YOU; WE WILL ALWAYS DO OUR BEST TO HELP.
TRINITY 2009
M: M:\Sub-faculties\Handbooks\\FHS 2009-10
16

Portuguese: Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

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FACULTY OF

MEDIEVAL AND MODERN

I NFORMATION FOR STUDENTS

Paper I Prose Composition and Essay

Paper II A Unseen translation (from European Portuguese)

Oral Examination – which consists of an aural comprehension

Paper I: Translation into Portuguese and Essay

Paper II A and II B: Translation from Portuguese (European and Brazilian)

The Oral Examination

LINGUISTIC STUDIES I: THE HISTORY AND STRUCTURE OF THE

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE TO 1540

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE 1500-1697

MEDIEVAL PRESCRIBED TEXTS

E. Gonçalves and M.A. Ramos A Lírica Galego-Portuguesa, Lisbon 1985

Texts Prescribed for Special Study

RENAISSANCE PRESCRIBED AUTHORS

1. Gil Vicente (c. 1465-c.1536)

Set texts: Décadas, ed. A. Baião (Vol. 1 only), Rópica Pnefma

3. Luís de Camões (c.1524-1580)

Set texts: Os Lusíadas, Líricas (ed. R. Lapa)

Set Texts: Bristo, Cioso, Poemas Lusitanos (incl. Castro)

5. D. Francisco Manuel de Melo (1608-1666)

MODERN PRESCRIBED AUTHORS

1. Almeida Garrett (1799-1854)

2. Eça de Queirós (1845-1900)

4. Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)

Set texts: Caetés, Angústia, Vidas secas, Infância

6. Clarice Lispector (1920-1977)

Clarice Lispector’s challenging, philosophical and psychologically charged literature has

2114 S, P. Latin-American Fiction from 1940

2130 P. The Galician-Portuguese Cancioneiros

2131 P. The Portuguese Expansion in Asia

2129 P. Portuguese Drama in the Sixteenth Century

2134 P. Twentieth-century Portuguese and Brazilian women writers

2135 P. The Literature of Portuguese-speaking Africa

2136 P. Contemporary Brazilian Literature

For regulations please consult the General FHS Handbook.

WHEN DRAWING UP THIS HANDBOOK WE HAVE TRIED TO BE AS ACCURATE

COURSES AND REGULATIONS ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER REVIEW, SO ALWAYS

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