The makers of the inelligence pleasures - some aspects of the organization of the intellectual market in Portugal in the nineteenth century

Abstract

During the first half of the nineteenth century, in Portugal, there was beginning to be developed a slow processus of commercialization of literature and, at the same time, of creation of new professional chances for intellectuals. The implantation of the parliamentary-representative regime, on awaking in the political party groups the necessity of disposing of expression organs to consolidate and enlarge their clienteles, would contribute to create a new professional in letters - the journalist. Beyond all that, the periodical press in conection with the incipient political-party apparatus acted like a bridge towards entering the Civil Service. On the other side, the impulse of the entrepreneurs in the publishing field sided to emancipate the intellectuals from the traditional market but without letting them to exempt themselves from the practice of the double profession, characterized by a dominant combinatory - that of the literary activity with the bureaucratic-political career, having the former subordinated to the latter generally. The dependence of the intellectuals in general on the political sphere and that of the peripheral intellectuals on the hegemony of the Lisbon intelligentsia were remarked among the elements that shaped the fights of this social category. The Cabralist conjuncture (under Costa Cabral) would favour the formation of a kind of united front of intellectuals differently placed in the party fan and in the intellectual hierarchy itself, acting in order to try and guarantee their autonommy as cultural producers, the right to the free exercise of their specific practice and the job security whenever they fulfilled that practice.