The Violent Maintenance of the Portuguese Colonial Identity and the Search for a Postcolonial One: Literary Images of Portugal as a Colonial and Postcolonial Nation

Through the examination of Cam es's Os Lusíadas, Sena's Os Gr o-Capit es and Saramago's A Jangada de Pedra, this article explores violence as a means of shaping Portuguese identity in different historical contexts, and how these works portray the continued recourse to violence as Portugal moves from colonizing to postcolonial nation.