ABSTRACT
In the contemporary academic discussion and literature of nationalism and national identity, as even a cursory survey of indices and bibliographies will rapidly suggest, Portugal and the Portuguese historical experience have not by and large received much attention. The richness of the symbolism of those representations, their inter-discursive framing and, particularly, their cultural and aesthetic formulation, on the other hand, effectively impair their reductive translation into narrowly political terms. Focusing on representations of the ‘Discoveries’, therefore, may suggest a more subtle reading of the cultural politics of the period. The ‘Discoveries’ were also often drawn upon in support of a different cultural identity thesis in relation to its ‘others’. In 1914, the Action Francaise-style ‘Portuguese Integralism’ emerged within the monarchist ranks. Defining Tradition in terms of a ruralist political ideal modelled on medieval corporative monarchy, Portuguese Integralism emphatically denounced the ‘Discoveries’ as an ‘error’, and as one of the root causes of the capitalist cosmopolitan modernity they so radically opposed.
