Abstract

MACHADO, Fernando Augusto. An heretic in a country of monks, or how Rousseau invaded Portugal. Diacrítica [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.2, pp.324-352. ISSN 0807-8967.

No matter how sophisticated the mechanisms of prevention, or how violent those of repression, nothing can stop the flow of ideas. This was the case in eighteenth-century Europe. The century of Enlightrnment, philosophy, and of reason was a cauldron for the new ideas and knowledge that profoundly transformed minds and nations. Portugal used the vast, sophisticated methods of a close, active clerical network in an attempt to guard against those numerous, dangerous bota-fogos that emerged noisily and on a grand scale on the other side of the Pirenees heralding modernity. However, the contention failed visibly and the subsequent heteredoxy enlivened the country. This paper will show how Rousseau, the Hercules of libertinism, of heresy and subversion, invaded this major mainstay of European friars, and how his theories and ideas were quickly disseminated either through his written work or by other means that interest, curiosity and imagination created.

Keywords : Enlightenment; Rousseau; censorship; Portugal; dissemination; reception.

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