The inspectors of good taste: the notion of good poetry in Portugal in the 18th Century in the view of poets themselves

ABSTRACT

In order to avoid anachronisms, it is imperative to recognize contemporaneous presumptions when analyzing Arcadian poetry penned in Portugal and its American colonies between 1750 and 1820. One of the primary coeval presumptions (and object of heated debate) was “good taste,” an expression whose meaning was associated with the idea of “truth,” which was philosophically understood at the time as “rational”. Such reasoning was consistent with the conservative modernization that marked the prominence of the Pombaline Period (under the Marquis of Pombal) that, not coincidentally, promoted this poetic style later termed Arcadism.

Keywords:
Arcadism; Good taste; Rationalism