Portuguese literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the Portuguese language, particularly by citizens of Portugal; it may also refer to literature written by people living in Portugal, Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, as well as other Portuguese-speaking countries. An early example of Portuguese literature is the tradition of a medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry, originally developed in Galicia and northern Portugal. The literature of Portugal is distinguished by a wealth and variety of lyric poetry, which has characterized it from the beginning of its language, after the Roman occupation; by its wealth of historical writing documenting Portugal's rulers, conquests, and expansion; by the then considered Golden Age of the Renaissance period of which it forms part the moral and allegorical Renaissance drama of Gil Vicente, Bernardim Ribeiro, Sá de Miranda and especially the great 16th-century national epic of Luís de Camíµes, author of national and epic poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads). The seventeenth century was marked by the introduction of the Baroque in Portugal and is generally regarded as the century of literary decadence, despite the existence of writers like Father António Vieira, and Francisco Rodrigues Lobo. The writers of the eighteenth century tried to counteract a certain decadence of the baroque stage by making an effort to recover the level of quality attained during the Golden Age, through the creation of academies and literary Arcadias - it was the time of Neoclassicism. In the nineteenth century, the neoclassical ideals were abandoned, where Almeida Garrett introduced Romanticism, followed by Alexandre Herculano and Camilo Castelo Branco. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Realism (of naturalistic features) developed in novel-writing, whose exponents included Eí§a de Queiroz and Ramalho Ortigí£o. Literary trends during the twentieth century are represented mainly by Fernando Pessoa, considered as one of the greatest national poets together with Camíµes, and, in later years, by the development of prose fiction, thanks to authors such as António Lobo Antunes and José Saramago, winner of the Nobel prize for Literature.
Se denomina literatura portuguesa o literatura de Portugal a la literatura escrita en idioma portugués por escritores portugueses. Queda excluida de ella, por lo tanto, la literatura brasileña, así como las literaturas de otros países lusoparlantes, y también las obras escritas en Portugal en lenguas distintas del portugués, como el latín o el español. Los inicios de la literatura portuguesa se sitúan en la medieval, desarrollada en Galicia y el norte de Portugal. Su Edad de Oro se sitúa en el Renacimiento, en que aparecen figuras como Bernardim Ribeiro, Gil Vicente, Sá de Miranda y sobre todo el gran poeta épico Luís de Camíµes, autor de Os Lusíadas. El siglo XVII estuvo marcado por la introducción del barroco en Portugal, y es generalmente considerado como un siglo de decadencia; de ahí que la literatura portuguesa del siglo XVIII estuviera marcada por los intentos de recuperar el nivel de la edad dorada, a través de la acción de Academias y Arcadias literarias. El principal introductor del romanticismo fue el poeta Almeida Garrett, seguido por Alejandro Herculano, antes de que las letras portuguesas tendieran al ultra-romanticismo; en el campo de la novela, la segunda mitad del siglo XIX vio el desarrollo del movimiento realista y naturalista, cuyo máximo representante fue Eí§a de Queirós. Las tendencias literarias del siglo XX están representadas, principalmente, por Fernando Pessoa, considerado como el gran poeta nacional junto con Camíµes, y ya en sus últimos años por el desarrollo de la prosa de ficción gracias a autores como António Lobo Antunes o el Premio Nobel de Literatura José Saramago.