Landscapes of Portugal in Two Hundred Years of Narratives.

Whether as a romantic depiction or with a pretension to realism, rural life was a classic topic throughout the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. A few writers represented the impending threats to the natural environment as a consequence of human actions, such as deforestation and poaching. More recently, literary landscape incorporates the profound changes the country has undergone in the last decades, and a global environmental reality at a European and worldwide level. Settings are mostly urban, though some nostalgia for the rural and the 'return to nature' can be seen, in line with the current culture of our days. From examples of landscape descriptions in fiction and non-fiction, this article focuses on the way in which Portuguese writers have valued the natural and cultural elements according to their literary skills and motives, and the cultural framework of their times. Excerpts from canonical writers and respected current authors are analysed: Alexandre Herculano, Júlio Dinis, Eça de Queiroz, Fialho de Almeida, Raul Brandão, Aquilino Ribeiro, Miguel Torga, José Saramago, Lídia Jorge, Mário de Carvalho and Rui Cardoso Martins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]