PORTUGUESA 



6283 



PORT WINE 



LITERATURE. For over 1,000 

 years the written language was 

 Latin. A native literature came 

 into existence only after the estab- 

 lishment of the Burgundian 

 dynasty. The French Crusaders 

 brought with them the poems, 

 romances, and chronicles of their 

 own country, thus giving a new 

 literary form to the folk-lyrics and 

 folk-tales which have always been 

 indigenous among the Portuguese 

 peasantry. Spanish models were 

 also closely imitated, and Castilian 

 was long the fashionable language. 



Court patronage helped the 

 growth of this new literature, 

 especially during the reign of King 

 Diniz or Denis (1279-1325), him- 

 self a poet of soms merit, and 

 throughout the whole of the 13th 

 century. The best prose writers of 

 this period were two court chroni- 

 clers, Fernao Lopes and G. E. de 

 Azurara. Romances of chivalry 

 were popular. Two of the best, 

 the anonymous Amadis of Gaul and 

 Moraes's Palmer of England, were 

 of Portuguese origin. 



Poets of the Renaissance 



Considered as a whole, Portu- 

 guese literature is chiefly remark- 

 able for the excellence of its pastoral 

 and lyrical poetry, its histories, 

 and its books of travel. The 

 Renaissance, followed by the dis- 

 coveries of Prince Henry the Navi- 

 gator and his successors, afforded 

 new inspiration, and the 16th cen- 

 tury is the golden age of Portu- 

 guese literature. To this period 

 belongs the Lusiads of Camoens, 

 one of the great epics of all time. 



Other great figures of this epoch 

 are the dramatist Gil Vicente, whose 

 work bridges the chasm between 

 the mysteries and moralities of the 

 medieval stage and the true comedy 

 of the 16th century ; the poets 

 Bernardin Ribeiro, Sa de Miranda, 

 and Antonio Ferreira, and the 

 chroniclers Joao de Barros, Diogo 

 do Conto, F. L. de Castanheda, and 

 Jaspar Correia. F. Mendes Pinto 

 deserves mention as the author of 

 a fascinating book of travel and 

 adventure, long considered fabu- 

 lous, but shown by modern investi- 

 gators to be largely authentic. 



During the 17th and 18th cen- 

 turies, the ecclesiastical censorship 

 and the decadence of Portugal 

 itself tended to give literature a 

 more artificial character. Origin- 

 ality was replaced by an exagger- 

 ated classicism. Historians wrote 

 to order and academies flourished. 

 Nevertheless, two great prose 

 writers, Antonio de Vieira and 

 Marianna de Alcoforado, belong 

 to the earlier part of this period, 

 and one distinguished poet, Bocage, 

 to its closing years. Vieira was the 

 prince of Catholic orators in the 



17th century. The tragic letters 

 of Marianna de Alcoforado have 

 been published in English as The 

 Love-letters of a Portuguese Nun. 

 From the Peninsular War to the 

 present day, the more conspicuous 

 literary names in Portugal have 

 been those of poets, journalists, 



Portuguese Man of War, showing 

 the air-filled float which enables 

 the jelly-fish to sail before the wind 



historians, or novelists. The his- 

 torian Herculano and the dra- 

 matist Almeida-Garrett were 

 largely instrumental in securing the 

 triumph of the Romantic move- 

 ment among their countrymen ; 

 and Herculano was also a pioneer 

 of modern historical research. His 

 History of Portugal is famous. 

 J. P. Oliveira Martins, a more recent 

 worker in the same field, has been 

 compared with Macaulay ; often 

 inaccurate in matter of detail, he 

 wrote brilliantly, and never failed 

 to make the past live. Among the 

 novelists, the best known and most 

 successful have been C. Castello 

 Branco, Eca de Queiroz, and Gomes 

 Coelho. But the best representa- 

 tives of the modern Portuguese 

 spirit have been the lyrical poets 

 Joao de Deus, whose verse has the 

 poignant quality of Heine's songs ; 

 Guerra Junqueiro, one of the in- 

 spirers of the revolutionary move- 

 ment of 1910, and others. 



K. G. Jayne 



Bibliography. Portugal, Old and 

 New, O. Crawford, 1880 ; History of 

 Portugal, E. MacMur lo, 3 vols., 1 888; 

 Through Portugal, M. A. S. Hume, 

 1907 ; Portugal, in The Story of the 

 Nations, H. Morse Stephens, 4th ed. 

 1908; Portugal, the Land and the 

 People, W. H. Koebel, 1909 ; The 

 Tourist's Spain and Portugal, R. K. 

 Wood, 1914; Portugal and the Portu- 

 guese, A. F. G. Bell, 1915 ; Portugal, 

 Old and Young, G. Young, 1917. 



Portuguesa. State of W. cen- 

 tral Venezuela. It is situated N. of 

 Zamora, and is named after the 

 river Portuguesa, which traverses 

 the state. Pop. 114,000. The capital 

 is Guanare. The river rises in the 

 Cordillera of Merida, flows S.E. for 

 about 200 m., and unites with the 

 Apure at San Fernando. 



Portuguese Man of War. Pop- 

 ular name for the genus Physalia 

 of the Siphonophora, a group of 

 jelly-fish. In this group the animals 

 occur in stocks or colonies, vitally 

 attached to one another, but not 

 adherent to rocks. Certain mem- 

 bers are provided with locomotive 

 organs, which they use to draw the 

 rest of the stock after them through 

 the water. In Physalia the in- 

 dividual members are attached to 

 a large float filled with air, which 

 is supposed to bear some resem- 

 blance to an ancient man of war. 



The colony is found floating on 

 i.ne surface of the water in the S. 

 seas. The dependent polyps may 

 be divided into three classes. Some 

 are provided with mouths and act 

 as feeders to the colony ; others 

 are reproductive ; and the rest are 

 provided with stings capable of 

 paralysing their prey and inflicting 

 serious injury on any person who 

 handles them. See Jelly Fish, 

 colour plate. 



Portulacaceae OR PURSLANE 

 FAMILY. Natural order of herbs 

 and a few small shrubs of world- 

 wide distribution, but chiefly 

 American. They have undivided 

 leaves, two sepals, four or more 

 petals and stamens corresponding 

 in number. 



Port-Vendres. Town of France. 

 In the dept. of Pyrenees-Orientales, 

 it contains one of the most commo- 

 dious harbours of the Mediter- 

 ranean, defended by forts and 

 batteries. To the S.E. is the light- 

 house of Cap Bear. There is a 

 trade in wine. The Roman name 

 was Portus Veneris. Pop. 3,000. 



Port Way. Traditional name 

 for a Roman rOad, incorporating 

 an older British track, from Sil- 

 chester, N. Hants, to Old Sanim, 

 E. Wilts. Traceable throuah 

 Finkley to the S. of Quarley Hill, 

 it reaches there its greatest devia- 

 tion, one m., from a straight line, 

 36 m. long, between the terminal 

 towns. Another road, also called 

 the Port Way, runs from Swindon 

 to Wallingford. 



Port Wine. Red, rich, strong 

 wine grown near the mouth of the 

 Douro, Portugal, and named from 

 Oporto, whence it is exported. The 

 wine-growing region, Alto Douro, 

 lies mainly on the S. bank of the 

 river, 60 m. E. of Oporto. Though 

 cold in winter, the climate is very 

 hot in summer, and the wine is 

 naturally strong. The grapes, 

 carefully gathered, are foot-pressed, 

 usually repeated at a secondary 

 stage in order to extract the full 

 colour from the skins. 



Before fermentation is complete, 

 about five parts of alcohol are 

 added to 100 of wine ; ufter the 

 first racking, more spirit, generally 



