A viagem de Miguel Torga

Fidalgo Mateus, Isabel Maria (2007). A viagem de Miguel Torga. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Miguel Torga (1907-1995) is a well established poet, novelist and dramatist in Portuguese literature. However, the present study demonstrates that Miguel Torga should be also considered as a major travel writer of the twentieth century, following the influences he had received from the early period of Portuguese Travel Literature, Modernism, Neo-Realism and Postmodernism in the European context.

The classification of Torga as a travel writer is supported by a thoroughgoing analysis of his most representative works, such as the \(Künstlerroman\) and the novel of Formation (\(Bildungsroman\)) \(The\) \(Creation\) \(of\) \(the\) \(World\), the Guidebook \(Portugal\), the autobiographical \(Diario\), \(Traqo\) \(de\) \(Uniao\) and the picaresque novel \(O\) \(Senhor\) \(Ventura\).

By adopting a comparative study between Portuguese and Anglo-Saxon Travel Literature, this study also presents the argument that Miguel Torga is an international travel writer. Like other Anglo-Saxon travel writers mainly in the inter-war years, Torga is concerned with social and political issues. In the Portuguese setting, a similar attention to the social aspect of the journey is also reinforced in the works of Vergilio Ferreira, \(Manhã\) \(Submersa\) and \(Vagão\) \('J'\). Finally, Torga's writing proves that the Portuguese Travel Literature does not end in the late nineteenth century, but this genre survived and prospered also in the twentieth century due to innovative narrative structures and themes.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):