O public spirit

The work gift, the result of research carried out during four (2001-2005) at the Department of Letters of the Federal University of Ouro Preto, inserting areas of concentration of Portuguese Literature, Lusophone Literatures, Comparative Literatures or, in a broader approach, Cultural Studies, sought to identify in all the Portuguese literary movements of its history a striking and common feature.Here called Portuguese Spirit, such feeling, nostalgic and melancholic, more than a mere recurring element during the whole history of Portuguese literature (from its most initial troubadourous period to its most current contemporaneity), was revealed during all our research a remarkable identity trait component of every cultural imaginary one of the oldest nations of the modern world. For that, we proceeded with the identification of this identity trait in each of the literary movements of the history of Portuguese culture through texts of its main representative authors, passing by consecrated names as Camões, Manuel Maria du Bocage, Eça de Queirós, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago among other icons of Lusitanian literature.