The classic and the contemporary, today, in some Portuguese poetry

Abstract

Starting from the Giorgio Agamben essay, “ O que é o Contemporâneo?” (in Nudez, Relógio d`Água, 2010), we intend to reflect on the contempo­rary, in general, and on contemporary Portuguese literature in particular. The Contemporary is understood not as a historical or chronological cate­gory, but rather as an unhistorical category, as text that can maintain itself current over time. To illustrate this idea, some poetics of Portuguese poets are taken into account in order to establish the dialogue between the classic and the contemporary: Camões, Cesário Verde, Herbert Helder, Ruy Belo, Nuno Júdice, Manuel de Freitas and Gonçalo M. Tavares are some of the chosen poets.