Journalists characters in ‘Cenas da Vida Portuguesa’ by Eça de Queirós

Abstract

This article intended to understand how the Portuguese literature from the second half of the 19^th century represented fictionally the men of the ‘press’. Having as reference the cultural history studies and journalism’s history, in particular, the collation of those fictional representations brought to the surface some sociocultural tensions. Those challenges were on the origin of the definition of journalists’ identity and in the scission of the field of the press which was determinant to the autonomy of their profession. The characters’ analysis, figurants and spaces of the four novels by Eça de Queirós – O Crime do Padre Amaro (1875), O Primo Basílio (1878), Os Maias (1888) e A Capital (1925) – have allowed to conclude i) that the presence of these characters on Eça’s novels proves the importance that the profession of journalist represented on urban socio-cultural chess in the second half of the 19^th century; ii) that, subjected to a caricatural figuration, these figures reveal the suspicion and despise that this new professional class deserved by the cultured elite who, until the mid-century, dominated the world of the press.