Reflections on the Portuguese Past to the Court Political Education from the Prologue of the Cancioneiro Geral (1516) by Garcia de Resende

Abstract

In this article, we analyse some aspects related to the writing of history in the prologue of the Cancioneiro Geral (1516) by Garcia de Resende (1470-1536). Our intention is to study the prologue from his context of composition, that is, the year 1516, in order to understand the situation of the “arte de trovar” presented by Resende. First of all, we reconstruct the context of composition of the work in order to understand the situation of the historical and literary context of the time. After that, we will try to rescue the memory and the function of the writing of history in the context of composition of the Cancioneiro. In the end, we write about the information in the prologue of the Cancioneiro, in order to understand some aspect highlighted by Garcia de Resende, that is, the situation of the “arte de trovar”, the writing as recuperation of memory and the importance of the past and the diffusion of the “arte de trovar” in the court environment as locus of political education. For this, we recover the reflections of Assmann (2011), Fernandes (2011), Fernandes (2012), Fernandes (2015), Geary (2002), Osório (2005), Osório (2006), Rocha (1979), which will help us to understand better the object and context.