De como o pícaro chegou a Portugal e aí se apresentou: contributo para a história da recepção do romance picaresco espanhol no sistema literário português

This thesis studies the reception of works of the picaresque genre in the Portuguese literary system between the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. It seeks to understand the historical grounds that may explain the belated publication of Spanish picaresque novels in Portuguese translation. In this project, we have prioritized the analysis of literary exchanges in the light of the relationship between dominant and dominated literatures, since previous studies have considered that the inequalities of literary power explained the European history of the reception of Spanish picaresque literature in translation. We argue that the Spanish picaresque novel – being written in low style – is a particularly expedient genre in the subversion of relationships of literary dominance. The literary use of oral and popular language is a recurring procedure in the history of the process leading to the independence of dominated literatures.The results appertaining to the identification of the movements of transmission of Spanish picaresque novels – whether originals or French translations – the source texts used for the Portuguese translations and the role played by French agents in the Portuguese book market suggest that the Portuguese reception of Spanish picaresque novels has been determined at first by the Spanish literary domination and, later, by the French literary domination.Three aspects suggest that the Portuguese reception of Spanish picaresque novels may have been related at first to a reaction against Spanish literary dominance and, later, to a reaction against French literary domination: first, the results appertaining to the observation of the non-import of Spanish picaresque novels in Portugal in the aftermath of the Portuguese independence from Spanish rule (1640); second, the analysis of the presentation of Spanish picaresque novels in nineteenth-century Portuguese periodicals; finally, both the identification of choices of translation related to the framework of the generic model that informed such choices and the stylistic formulation of the target texts.Thus, this case-study analyses the behavior of a peripheral literary system which, while still under the influence of dominant literatures, subverts this very same influence in its path towards independence.