Early Modern Iberian Landscapes: Language, Literature, and the Politics of Identity

Abstract

This study examines the cultural cross-pollination occurring between Spain and Portugal during the early modern period. More specifically, it argues that a number of Portuguese authors––including Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Ângela de Azevedo, Jacinto Cordeiro, and António de Sousa de Macedo––used their proficiency in Spanish to articulate and spread a collective sense of national identity throughout the Castilianized peninsula and Europe. Despite emerging from an ambiguous state of social, political, and cultural hybridity, these Portuguese writers clearly identified with and claimed allegiance to their native land. Overall, this investigation attempts to situate Portuguese literature written in Spanish within the greater literary production of the time and reappraise a body of works that uniquely addresses the intersection of language, literature, and politics on the early modern Iberian landscape.