Paper short abstract:

Portuguese literature participates in the shared interest in the poetry of the Far East, as it happened in other European literary traditions. This process is introducing new ways of understanding poetic writing, which require the kind of systematic reading that this research tries to provide.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout the twentieth century, Portuguese literature participated in the shared interest in the poetry of the Far East. But a more consistent and far reaching influence, namely of the Japanese tradition of the haiku, can only be traced from the 1980's up until this day and age. This subtle and gradual process is changing our conception of poetic tradition. The inclusion of certain formal aspects of Chinese and Japanese poetry manifests itself at least at two levels: in the anatomy and graphic design of the books; and in the structure of its poetic compositions. Focusing on books published in Portugal in the last thirty years, we'll find elements that confirm the close link between the poetic and the pictorial dimensions that exists in the aesthetic ideals of departure. The labour of editing is sensitive to the fact that in the classical poetry of the Far East the word is inseparable from its visual expression. As regards to the theoretical basis that nourishes the poems, the similarities between the Chinese and the Japanese aesthetic thoughts seem even more constant and direct. The content of the works reveals a strong affinity to the philosophical principles of Zen and Taoism; the poems correspond to various traits of these poetics, particularly the haiku (conciseness, objectivity, a preference for nouns, the surprising conclusion or the suppression of subordinate sentences). This dynamic is embodied in hybrid works that turn the word into a matter going through other forms of expression, which are not exclusive to poetry.