O intelectual no seu labirinto: alta cultura, romance moderno e nacionalismo no tardo-oitocentismo português

This study reflects on the concepts of culture in the context of contemporary reading and publishing and its influence on the building of the legitimacy of certain approaches, themes and genres. In this sense, it will analyse a representative part of the cultural debates in Portugal in the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century as well as the place of popular publishing and the complex symbolic struggles between national and foreign printed production, especially the recent French and Brazilian publishing house legacies. Arguments are presented not only to identify points of contact between the Portuguese case and those European countries with a close affinity to it, but also to allow an understanding of the specificity of this case in the light of the relationship between literature, politics, history, society, conservative elitism, nationalism and the affirmation of the literary field. The historical novel is here an exemplary locus of complex intersections in cultural creation, reception and debate.