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Portuguese literature

Portuguese literature is literature written in the Portuguese language, from the Portuguese-speaking world. It can refer to Lusophone literature written by authors from Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, and other Community of Portuguese Language Countries. This article focuses on Portuguese literature sensu stricto, that is, literature from the country of Portugal.

An early example of Portuguese literature is the tradition of a medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry, originally developed in Galicia and northern Portugal. The literature of Portugal is distinguished by a wealth and variety of lyric poetry, which has characterized it from the beginning of its language, after the Roman occupation; by its wealth of historical writing documenting Portugal's rulers, conquests, and expansion; by then considered the Golden Age of the Renaissance period of which it forms part of the moral and allegorical Renaissance drama of Gil Vicente, Bernardim Ribeiro, Sá de Miranda and especially the great 16th-century national epic of Luís de Camões, author of the national and epic poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads).

The seventeenth century was marked by the introduction of the Baroque in Portugal and is generally regarded as the century of literary decadence, despite the existence of writers like Father António Vieira, Padre Manuel Bernardes and Francisco Rodrigues Lobo.

The writers of the eighteenth century tried to counteract a certain decadence of the baroque stage by making an effort to recover the level of quality attained during the Golden Age, through the creation of academies and literary Arcadias - it was the time of Neoclassicism. In the nineteenth century, the neoclassical ideals were abandoned, where Almeida Garrett introduced Romanticism, followed by Alexandre Herculano and Camilo Castelo Branco.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Realism (of naturalistic features) developed in novel-writing, whose exponents included Eça de Queiroz and Ramalho Ortigão. Literary trends during the twentieth century are represented mainly by Fernando Pessoa, considered one of the greatest national poets together with Camões, and, in later years, by the development of prose fiction, thanks to authors such as António Lobo Antunes and José Saramago, winner of the Nobel prize for Literature.

Verse
It has been argued (by great early scholars such as Henry Roseman Lang and Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos) that an indigenous popular poetry existed before the beginning of the written record, although the first datable poems (a handful between around 1200 and 1225) show influences from Provence. These poems were composed in Galician-Portuguese, also known as Old Portuguese. The first known venues of poetic activity were aristocratic courts in Galicia and the North of Portugal (we know this thanks to the recent work of the Portuguese historian António Resende de Oliveira). After that the center shifted to the court of Alfonso X (The Wise King), King of Castile and León (etc.). Some of the same poets (and others) practiced their craft in the court of Afonso III of Portugal, who had been educated in France. The main manuscript sources for Galician-Portuguese verse are the Cancioneiro da Ajuda probably a late 13th-century manuscript, the Cancioneiro da Vaticana and the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional (also called Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti). Both these latter codices were copied in Rome at the behest of the Italian humanist Angelo Colocci, probably around 1525.

There was a late flowering during the reign of King Dinis I (1261–1325), a very learned man, whose output is the largest preserved (137 texts). The main genres practiced were the male-voiced cantiga d'amor, the female-voiced cantiga d'amigo (though all the poets were male) and the poetry of insult, called cantigas d'escarnio e maldizer (songs of scorn and insult). This 13th-century Court poetry, which deals mainly with love and personal insult (often wrongly called satire), by no means derives entirely from Provençal models and conventions (as is often said). Most scholars and critics favor the cantigas d'amigo, which probably were "rooted in local folksong" (Henry Roseman Lang, 1894), and in any event are the largest surviving body of female-voiced love lyric that has survived from ancient or medieval Europe. The total corpus of medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric, excluding the Cantigas de Santa Maria, consists of around 1,685 texts. In addition to the large manuscripts named above, we also have a few songs with music in the Vindel Parchment, which contains melodies for six cantigas d'amigo of Martin Codax, and the Pergaminho Sharrer, a fragment of a folio with seven cantigas d'amor of King Dinis. In both these manuscripts the poems are the same we find in the larger codices and moreover in the same order.

By the middle of the 15th century troubadour verse was effectively dead, replaced by a limper form of court poetry, represented in the Cancioneiro Geral compiled in the 16th century by poet and humanist Garcia de Resende. Meanwhile, the people were elaborating a ballad poetry of their own, the body of which is known as the Romanceiro. It consists of lyrico-narrative poems treating of war, chivalry, adventure, religious legends, and the sea, many of which have great beauty and contain traces of the varied civilizations which have existed in the peninsula. When the Court poets had exhausted the artifices of Provençal lyricism, they imitated the poetry of the people, giving it a certain vogue which lasted until the Classical Renaissance. It was then thrust into the background, and though cultivated by a few, it remained unknown to men of letters until the nineteenth century, when Almeida Garrett began his literary revival and collected folk poems from the mouths of the peasantry.

Prose
Prose developed later than verse and first appeared in the 13th century in the shape of short chronicles, lives of saints, and genealogical treatises called Livros de Linhagens. In Portuguese chanson de geste has survived to this day, but there are medieval poems of romantic adventure given prose form; for example, the Demanda do Santo Graal (Quest for the Holy Grail) and "Amadis of Gaul". The first three books of the latter probably received their present shape from João Lobeira, a troubadour of the end of the 13th century, though this original has been lost and only a 16th-century Spanish version remains. The Book of Aesop also belongs to this period. Though the cultivated taste of the Renaissance affected to despise the medieval stories, it adopted them with alterations as a homage to classical antiquity. Hence came the cycle of the "Palmerins" and the Chronica do Emperador Clarimundo of João de Barros. The medieval romance of chivalry gave place to the pastoral novel, the first example of which is the Saudades of Bernardim Ribeiro, followed by the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor, a Portuguese writer who wrote in Spanish. Later in the sixteenth century Gonçalo Fernandes Trancoso, a fascinating storyteller, produced his Historias de Proveito e Exemplo.

Prose
A new epoch in literature dates from the Revolution of 1383-1385. King John I wrote a book of the chase, his sons, King Duarte and Peter, Duke of Coimbra, composed moral treatises, and an anonymous scribe told with charming naïveté the story of the heroic Nuno Álvares Pereira in the Chronica do Condestavel. The line of the chroniclers which is one of the boasts of Portuguese literature began with Fernão Lopes, who compiled the chronicles of the reigns of Kings Pedro I, Fernando I, and John I. He combined a passion for accurate statement with a special talent for descriptive writing and portraiture, and with him a new epoch dawns. Azurara, who succeeded him in the post of official chronicler, and wrote the Chronicle of Guinea and chronicles of the African wars, is an equally reliable historian, whose style is marred by pedantry and moralizing. His successor, Ruy de Pina, avoids these defects and, though not an artist like Lopes, gives a useful record of the reigns of Kings Duarte, Afonso V, and John II. His history of the latter monarch was appropriated by the poet Garcia de Resende, who embellished it with anecdotes gathered during his intimacy with John, and issued it under his own name.

Poetry
The introduction of Italian poetry, especially that of Petrarch, into the peninsula led to a revival of Castilian verse, which was dominant in Portugal throughout the fifteenth century. Constable Dom Pedro, friend of the Marquis of Santillana, wrote almost entirely in Castilian and is the first representative of the Castilian influence, which imported from Italy the love of allegory and reverence for classical antiquity. The court poetry of some three hundred knights and gentlemen of the time of Afonso V and John II is contained in the "Cancioneiro Geral", compiled by Resende and inspired by Juan de Mena, Jorge Manrique, and other Spaniards. The subjects of these mostly artificial verses are love and satire. Among the few that reveal special talent and genuine poetical feeling are Resende's lines on the death of Inês de Castro, the "Fingimento de Amores" of Diogo Brandão, and the "Coplas" of D. Pedro. Bernardim Ribeiro, Gil Vicente, and Sá de Miranda, who find menton in the "Cancioneiro," went on to create a literary revolution.

Pastoral poetry
Portuguese pastoral poetry is more natural and sincere than that of the other nations because Ribeiro, the founder of the bucolic school, sought inspiration in the national serranilhas; however, his eclogues, despite beng rich in feeling and rhythmic harmony, are surpassed by the "Crisfal" of Cristóvão Falcão. These, as well as the eclogues and sententious "Cartas" of Sá de Miranda, are written in versos de arte mayor. The popular medida velha (as the national metre was afterwards called, to distinguish it from the Italian hendecasyllable), continued to be used by Camões in his so-called minor works, as also by Bandarra in his prophecies and Gil Vicente.

Drama
Though Gil Vicente did not originate dramatic representations, he is considered the father of the Portuguese stage. Of his forty-four pieces, fourteen are in Portuguese and eleven in Castilian; the remaining pieces are bilingual and consist of autos, that is, devotional works, tragicomedies, and farces. Beginning in 1502 with religious pieces, conspicuous among them being "Auto da Alma" and the famous trilogy of the "Barcas", he soon introduces the comic and satirical element to provide relief and achieve moral aims. By the close of his career in 1536, he had arrived at pure comedy, as found in "Inês Pereira" and the "Floresta de Enganos", besides developing the study of character. The plots are simple, the dialogue spirited, the lyrics often of finished beauty, and while Gil Vicente appeared too early to be a great dramatist, his plays mirror to perfection the types, customs, language, and daily life of all classes. The playwrights who followed him had neither superior talents nor court patronage and, facing attacks from the classical school for their lack of culture and from the Inquisition for their grossness, they were reduced to entertaining the lower classes at country fairs and festivals.

First classical phase: The Renaissance
The Renaissance produced a pleiad of distinguished poets, historians, critics, antiquaries, theologians, and moralists which made the sixteenth century a golden age.

Lyric and epic poetry
Sá de Miranda introduced Italian forms of verse and raised the tone of poetry. He was followed by António Ferreira, a superior stylist, by Diogo Bernardes, and Andrade Caminha, but the imitation of classical models by the Quinhentistas came at the cost of spontaneity, with the verse of Frei Agostinho da Cruz being an exception. The genius of Luís de Camões led him to fuse the best elements of the Italian and popular muse, thus creating a new poetry. Imitators arose in the succeeding centuries, but most of their epics are little more than chronicles in verse. The epics include three by Jerónimo Corte-Real, and one each by Pereira Brandão, Francisco de Andrade, Rodrigues Lobo, Pereira de Castro, Sá de Menezes, and Garcia de Mascarenhas.

The classical plays
Sá de Miranda endeavoured also to reform the drama and, shaping himself on Italian models, wrote the "Estrangeiros". Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos had produced in "Eufrosina" the first prose play, but the comedies of Sá and António Ferreira are artificial and stillborn productions, though the latter's tragedy, "Inês de Castro", if dramatically weak, has something of Sophocles in the spirit and form of the verse.

Prose
The best prose work of the sixteenth century is devoted to history and travel. João de Barros in his "Decadas", continued by Diogo do Couto, described with mastery the deeds achieved by the Portuguese in the discovery and conquest of the lands and seas of the Orient. Damião de Góis, humanist and friend of Erasmus, wrote with rare independence on the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal. Bishop Osório treated of the same subject in Latin, but his interesting "Cartas" are in the vulgar tongue. Among others who dealt with the East are Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, António Galvão, Gaspar Correia, Bras de Albuquerque, Frei Gaspar da Cruz, and Frei João dos Santos. The chronicles of the kingdom were continued by Francisco de Andrade and Frei Bernardo da Cruz, and Miguel Leitão de Andrade compiled an interesting volume of "Miscellanea". The travel literature of the period is too large for detailed mention: Persia, Syria, Abyssinia, Florida, and Brazil were visited and described and Father Lucena compiled a classic life of St. Francis Xavier. The "Peregrination" of Fernão Mendes Pinto, a typical Conquistador, is worth all the story books put together for its extraordinary adventures told in a vigorous style, full of colour and life, while the "História trágico-marítima", a record of notable shipwrecks between 1552 and 1604, has good specimens of simple anonymous narrative. The dialogues of Samuel Usque, a Lisbon Jew, also deserve mention. Religious subjects were usually treated in Latin, but among moralists who used the vernacular were Frei Heitor Pinto, Bishop Arraez, and Frei Thome de Jesus, whose "Trabalhos de Jesus" has appeared in many languages.

Second classical phase: Baroque
The alleged inferiority of seventeenth-century literature to that of the preceding age has been blamed on the new royal absolutism, the Portuguese Inquisition, the Index, and the exaggerated humanism of the Jesuits who directed higher education; nevertheless, had a man of genius appeared he would have overcome all obstacles. In fact, the world of letters shared in the national decline. The influence of Gongora and Marino was felt by all the Seiscentistas, as may be seen in the "Fenix Renascida". The Revolution of 1640 restored a Portuguese king to the throne, but could not undo the effects of the sixty years of personal union with the Spanish crown. The use of Spanish continued among the upper class and was preferred by many authors who desired a larger audience. Spain had given birth to great writers for whom the Portuguese forgot the earlier ones of their own land. The foreign influence was strongest in the drama. The leading Portuguese playwrights wrote in Spanish, and in the national tongue only poor religious pieces and a witty comedy by D. Francisco Manuel de Mello, "Auto do Fidalgo Aprendiz", were produced. The numerous Academies, which arose bearing exotic names, aimed at raising the level of letters, but they engaged in discussions of ridiculous theses that led to the triumph of pedantry and bad taste.

Lyric poetry
Melodious verses relieve the dullness of the pastoral romances of Rodrigues Lobo, while his "Corte na Aldea" is a book of varied interest in elegant prose. The versatile D. Francisco Manuel de Mello, in addition to his sonnets on moral subjects, wrote pleasing imitations of popular romances, but is at his best in a reasoned but vehement "Memorial to John IV", in the witty "Apologos Dialogaes", and in the homely philosophy of the "Carta de Guia de Casados", prose classics. Other poets of the period are Soror Violante do Ceo, and Frei Jerónimo Vahia, convinced Gongorists, Frei Bernardo de Brito with the "Sylvia de Lizardo", and the satirists, D. Tomás de Noronha and António Serrão de Castro.

Prose
The century had a richer output in prose than in verse, and history, biography, sermons, and epistolary correspondence all flourished. Writers on historical subjects were usually friars who worked in their cells and not, as in the sixteenth century, travelled men and eyewitnesses of the events they describe. They occupied themselves largely with questions of form and are better stylists than historians. Among the five contributors to the ponderous "Monarchia Lusitana", only the conscientious Frei António Brandão fully realized the importance of documentary evidence. Frei Bernardo de Brito begins his work with the creation and ends it where he should have begun; he constantly mistakes legend for fact, but was a patient investigator and vigorous narrator. Frei Luis de Sousa, the famous stylist, worked up existing materials into the classical hagiography "Vida de D. Frei Bartolomeu dos Mártires" and "Annaes d'el Rei D. João III. Manuel de Faria e Sousa, historian and arch-commentator of Camões, by a strange irony of fate chose Spanish as his vehicle, as did Mello for his classic account of the Catalan War, while Jacinto Freire de Andrade told in grandiloquent language the story of justice-loving viceroy, D. João de Castro.

Ecclesiastical eloquence was at its best in the seventeenth century and the pulpit filled the place of the press of to-day. The originality and imaginative power of his sermons are said to have won for Father António Vieira in Rome the title of "Prince of Catholic Orators" and though they and his letters exhibit some of the prevailing faults of taste, he is nonetheless great both in ideas and expression; perhaps most famous among his sermons is his 1654 Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Fish. The discourses and devotional treatises of the Oratorian Manuel Bernardes, who was a recluse, have a calm and sweetness that we miss in the writings of a man of action like Vieira and, while equally rich, are purer models of classic Portuguese prose. He is at his best in "Luz e Calor" and the "Nova Floresta". Letter writing is represented by such master hands as D. Francisco Manuel de Mello in familiar epistles, Frei António das Chagas in spiritual, and by five short but eloquent documents of human affection, the "Cartas de Mariana Alcoforado".

Third classical phase: Neo-classicism
Affectation continued to mark the literature of the first half of the eighteenth century, but signs of a change gradually appeared and ended in that complete literary reformation known as the Romantic Movement. Distinguished men who fled abroad to escape the prevailing despotism did much for intellectual progress by encouragement and example. Verney criticized the obsolete educational methods and exposed the literary and scientific decadence in the "Verdadeiro Methodo de Estudar", while the various Academies and Arcadias, wiser than their predecessors, worked for purity of style and diction, and translated the best foreign classics.

The Academies
The Academy of History, established by John V in 1720 in imitation of the French Academy, published fifteen volumes of learned "Memoirs" and laid the foundations for a critical study of the annals of Portugal, counted among its members being Caetano de Sousa, author of the voluminous "Historia da Casa Real", and the bibliographer Barbosa Machado. The Royal Academy of Sciences, founded in 1779, continued the work and placed literary criticism on a sounder footing, but the principal exponents of belles-lettres belonged to the Arcadias.

The Arcadians
Of these the most important was the Arcadia Ulisiponense, established in 1756 by the poet Cruz e Silva—"to form a school of good example in eloquence and poetry"—and it included the most celebrated writers of the time. Pedro Correia Garção composed the "Cantata de Dido", a classic gem, and many excellent sonnets, odes, and epistles. The bucolic verse of Quita has the tenderness and simplicity of that of Bernardin Ribeiro, while in the mock-heroic poem, "Hyssope", Cruz e Silva satirizes ecclesiastical jealousies, local types, and the prevailing gallomania with real humour. Intestine disputes led to the dissolution of the Arcadia in 1774, but it had done good service by raising the standards of taste and introducing new poetical forms. Unfortunately, its adherents were too apt to content themselves with imitating the ancient classics and the Quinhentistas and they adopted a cold, reasoned style of expression, without emotion or colouring. Their whole outlook was painfully academic. Many of the Arcadians followed the example of a latter-day Maecenas, the Conde de Ericeira, and endeavoured to nationalize the pseudo-classicism which obtained in France. In 1790 the "New Arcadia" came into being and had in Bocage a man who, under other conditions, might have been a great poet. His talent led him to react against the general mediocrity and though he achieved no sustained flights, his sonnets vie with those of Camoens. He was a master of short improvised lyrics as of satire, which he used to effect in the "Pena de Talião" against Agostinho de Macedo.

This turbulent priest constituted himself a literary dictator and in "Os Burros" surpassed all other bards in invective, moreover he sought to supplant the Lusiads by a tasteless epic, "Oriente". He, however, introduced the didactic poem, his odes reach a high level, and his letters and political pamphlets display learning and versatility, but his influence on letters was hurtful. The only other Arcadian worthy of mention is Curvo Semedo, but the "Dissidents", a name given to those poets who remained outside the Arcadias, include three men who show independence and a sense of reality, José Anastácio da Cunha, Nicolão Tolentino, and Francisco Manuel de Nascimento, better known as Filinto Elysio. The first versified in a philosophic and tender strain, the second sketched the custom and follies of the time in quintilhas of abundant wit and realism, the third spent a long life of exile in Paris in reviving the cult of the sixteenth-century poets, purified the language of Gallicisms and enriched it by numerous works, original and translated. Though lacking imagination, his contos, or scenes of Portuguese life, strike a new note of reality, and his blank verse translation of the "Martyrs" of Chateaubriand is a high performance. Shortly before his death he became a convert to the Romantic Movement, for whose triumph in the person of Almeida Garrett he had prepared the way.

Brazilian poetry
During the eighteenth century the colony of Brazil began to contribute to Portuguese letters. Manuel da Costa wrote a number of Petrarchian sonnets, Manuel Inácio da Silva Alvarenga showed himself an ardent lyricist and cultivator of form, Tomás António Gonzaga became famous by the harmonious verses of his love poem "Marília de Dirceu", while the "Poesias sacras" of António Pereira Sousa Caldas have a certain mystical charm though metrically hard. In epic poetry the chief name is that of Basílio da Gama, whose "O Uraguai" deals with the struggle between the Portuguese and the Paraguay Indians. It is written in blank verse and has some notable episodes. The "Caramuru" of Santa Rita Durão begins with the discovery of Bahia and contains, in a succession of pictures, the early history of Brazil. The passages descriptive of native customs are well written and these poems are superior to anything of the kind produced contemporaneously by the mother country.

Prose
The prose of the century is mainly dedicated to scientific subjects, but the letters of António da Costa, António Ribeiro Sanches, and Alexandre de Gusmão have literary value and those of the celebrated Carvalheiro d'Oliveira, even if not very accurate, are even more informative.

Drama
Though a Court returned to Lisbon in 1640, it preferred, for one hundred and fifty years, Italian opera and French plays to vernacular representations. Early in the eighteenth century several authors sprung from the people vainly attempted to found a national drama. Their pieces mostly belong to low comedy. The "Operas Portuguezas" of António José da Silva, produced between 1733 and 1741, have a real comic strength and a certain originality, and, like those of Nicolau Luiz, exploit with wit the faults and foibles of the age. The latter divided his attention between heroic comedies and comedies de capa y espada and, though wanting in ideas and taste, they enjoyed a long popularity. At the same time the Arcadia endeavoured to raise the standard of the stage, drawing inspiration from the contemporary French drama, but its members lacked dramatic talent and achieved little. Garção wrote two bright comedies, Quita some stillborn tragedies, and Manuel de Figueredo compiled plays in prose and verse on national subjects, which fill thirteen volumes, but he could not create characters.

Poetry
The early nineteenth century witnessed a literary reformation which was begun by Almeida Garrett who had become acquainted with the English and French Romanticism in exile and based his work on the national traditions. In the narrative poem "Camões" (1825) he broke with the established rules of composition and followed it with "Flores sem Fruto" and a collection of ardent love poems "Folhas Caídas", while the clear elegant prose of this true artist is seen in a miscellany of romance and criticism, "Viagens na minha terra".

The poetry of the austere Alexandre Herculano has a religious or patriotic motive and is reminiscent of Lamennais. The movement initiated by Garrett and Herculano became ultra-Romantic with Castilho, a master of metre, who lacked ideas, and the verses of João de Lemos and the melancholy Soares de Passos record a limited range of personal emotions, while their imitators voice sentiments which they have not felt deeply or at all. Tomás Ribeiro, author of the patriotic poem "D. Jayme", is sincere, but belongs to the same school which thought too much of form and melody.

In 1865 some young poets led by Antero de Quental, and future president Teófilo Braga, rebelled against the domination over letters which Castilho had assumed, and, under foreign influences, proclaimed the alliance of philosophy with poetry. A fierce pamphlet war heralded the downfall of Castilho and poetry gained in breadth and reality, though in many instances it became non-Christian and revolutionary.

Quental produced finely wrought, pessimistic sonnets inspired by neo-Buddhistic and German agnostic ideas, while Braga, a Positivist, compiled an epic of humanity, the "Visão dos Tempos".

Guerra Junqueiro is mainly ironic in the "Morte de D. João", in "Pátria" he evokes and scourges the Braganza kings in some powerful scenes, and in "Os Simples" interprets nature and rural life by the light of a pantheistic imagination. Gomes Leal is merely anti-Christian with touches of Baudelaire. João de Deus belonged to no school; an idealist, he drew inspiration from religion and women, and the earlier verses of the "Campo de Flores" are marked, now by tender feeling, now by sensuous mysticism, all very Portuguese.

Other true poets are the sonneteer João Penha, the Parnassian Goncalves Crespo, and the symbolist Eugénio de Castro. The reaction against the use of verse for the propaganda of radicalism in religion and politics has succeeded and the most considered poets of the early twentieth century, Correia de Oliveira, and Lopes Vieira, were natural singers with no extraneous purpose to serve. They owe much to the "Só" of António Nobre, a book of true race poetry.

Drama
After producing some classical tragedies, the best of which is "Cato", Almeida Garrett undertook the reform of the stage on independent lines, though he learnt something from the Anglo-German school. Anxious to find a national drama, he chose subjects from Portuguese history and, beginning with "An Auto of Gil Vicente", produced a series of prose plays which culminated in "Brother Luiz de Sousa", a masterpiece. His imitators, Mendes Leal and Pinheiro Chagas, fell victim to ultra-Romanticism, but Fernando Caldeira and Gervásio Lobato wrote lifelike and witty comedies and recently the regional pieces of D. João da Camara have won success, even outside Portugal. At the present time, with the historical and social plays of Lopes de Mendonça, Júlio Dantas, Marcellino Mesquita, and Eduardo Schwalbach, drama is more flourishing than ever before and Garrett's work has fructified fifty years after his death.

Novel
The novel is really a creation of the nineteenth century and it began with historical romances in the style of Walter Scott by Alexandre Herculano, to whom succeeded Rebelo da Silva with A Mocidade de D. João V, Andrade Corvo, and others. The romance of manners is due to the versatile Camilo Castelo Branco, a rich impressionist who describes to perfection the life of the early part of the century in Amor de Perdição, Novellas do Minho, and other books. Gomes Coelho (Júlio Dinis), a romantic idealist and subjective writer, is known best by As Pupilas do Senhor Reitor, but the great creative artist was José Maria de Eça de Queirós, founder of the Naturalist School, and author of Primo Basílio, Correspondência de Fradique Mendes, A Cidade e as Serras. His characters live and many of his descriptive and satiric passages have become classical. Among the lesser novelists are Pinheiro Chagas, Arnaldo Gama Luís de Magalhães, Teixeira de Queirós, and Malheiro Dias.

Other prose
History became a science with Alexandre Herculano whose História de Portugal is also valuable for its sculptural style, and Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins ranks as a painter of scenes and characters in Os Filhos de D. João I and Vida de Nuno Álvares. A strong gift of humour distinguishes the As Farpas of Ramalho Ortigão, as well as the work of Fialho d'Almeida and Julio Cesar Machado, and literary criticism had able exponents in Luciano Cordeiro and Moniz Barreto. The Panorama under the editorship of Herculano exercised a sound and wide influence over letters, but since that time the press has become less and less literary and now treats of little save politics.

Luís Vaz de Camões
The poet Luís Vaz de Camões (1524 - June 10, 1580) was the author of the epic poem Os Lusíadas. (In the Victorian era, he was both sufficiently admired and sufficiently obscure for Elizabeth Barrett Browning to disguise her work by entitling it Sonnets from the Portuguese, a reference to Camões).

The Portuguese national holiday, "Portugal Day" or "Dia de Portugal, das Comunidades Portuguesas e de Camões" (Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities), is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of Camões' death. It is a day of national pride similar to the "Independence Day" celebrated in other countries.

Eça de Queirós
Eça de Queirós (1845–1900) was a Portuguese novelist. Born in Póvoa de Varzim, near Porto, he traveled throughout the world as a consul. He accepted an assignment to the consulate of Paris in 1888 and remained there until his death on August 16, 1900. The books he wrote in Paris are critical of Portuguese society. His most famous works include Os Maias (The Maias) (1878), O Crime do Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) (1876) and O Primo Bazilio (Cousin Basílio) (1878). Nicknamed the "Portuguese Zola," Eça was the founder of Portuguese Naturalism.

In 2002, the Mexican director Carlos Carrera made a motion picture, "El Crimen del Padre Amaro" ("The Crime of Father Amaro"), adapted from Queirós' novel. One of the most successful Mexican films in history, it was also controversial because of its depiction of Catholic priesthood.

Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was a Portuguese poet and prose writer. He used heteronyms, which allowed him to write in different styles not usually available to a poet. One of his most famous works was the epic-lyric poem "Mensagem" (Message).

Message discusses Sebastianism and Portuguese prophecies that arose after the death of Sebastian of Portugal in the Battle of Alcácer Quibir. The Portuguese await the return of the dead king on a foggy day – the return of the "National I" (Eu Nacional) that will take Portugal to govern the Fifth Empire.

Antero de Quental
Antero de Quental studied at the University of Coimbra, and soon distinguished himself by unusual talent, as well as turbulence and eccentricity. He began to write poetry at an early age primarily, though not entirely, devoting himself to the sonnet. After the publication of one volume of verse, he entered with great warmth into the revolt of the young men which dethroned António Feliciano de Castilho, the chief living poet of the elder generation, from his place as dictator over modern Portuguese literature. He then travelled, engaged on his return in political and socialistic agitations, and found his way through a series of disappointments to the mild pessimism, a kind of Western Buddhism, which animates his latest poetical productions. His melancholy was increased by a spinal disease, which after several years of retirement from the world drove him to suicide on his native island.

Antero stands at the head of modern Portuguese poetry after João de Deus. His principal defect is monotony: his own self is his solitary theme, and he seldom attempts any other form of composition than the sonnet. On the other hand, few poets who have primarily devoted themselves to this form have produced so large a proportion of really exquisite work. The comparatively few pieces in which be either forgets his doubts and inward conflicts, or succeeds in giving them an objective form, are among the most beautiful in any literature. The purely introspective sonnets are less attractive, but equally finely wrought, interesting as psychological studies, and impressive from their sincerity. His mental attitude is well described by himself as the effect of Germanism on the unprepared mind of a Southerner. He had learned much, and half-learned more, which he was unable to assimilate, and his mind became a chaos of conflicting ideas, settling down into a condition of gloomy negation, save for the one conviction of the vanity of existence, which ultimately destroyed him. A healthy participation in public affairs might have saved him, but he seemed incapable of entering upon any course that did not lead to delusion and disappointment. The great popularity acquired, notwithstanding, by poetry so metaphysical and egotistic is a testimony to the artistic instinct of the Portuguese.

As a prose writer Quental displayed high talents, though he wrote little. His most important prose work is the Considerações sobre a philosophia da historia literaria Portugueza, but he earned fame by his pamphlets on the Coimbra question, Bom senso e bom gosto, a letter to Castilho, and A dignidade das lettras e litteraturas officiaes.

His friend Oliveira Martins edited the Sonnets (Porto, 1886), supplying an introductory essay; and an interesting collection of studies on the poet by the leading Portuguese writers appeared in a volume entitled Anthero de Quental. In Memoriam (Oporto, 1896). The sonnets have been turned into most European languages; into English by Edgar Prestage (Anthero de Quental, Sixty-four Sonnets, London, 1894), together with a striking autobiographical letter addressed by Quental to his German translator, Dr Storck.

Alexandre O'Neill
Alexandre Manuel Vahía de Castro O’Neill (December 19, 1924 - August 21, 1986) was a Portuguese poet of Irish origin.

In 1948, O'Neill was among the founders of the Lisbon Surrealist Movement, along with Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos, José-Augusto França and others. His writings soon diverged from surrealist to form an original style whose poetry reflects a love/hate relationship with his country.

His most salient characteristics– a disrespect of conventions, both social and literary, an attitude of permanent revolt, playfulness with language, and the use of parody and black humor – are used to form a body of incisive depictions of what it is to be Portuguese and throw light on his relation with the country.

O’Neill was in permanent conflict with Portugal. While other contemporaries wrote poems that protested against national life under Salazar, O’Neill's attack ran deeper. Poems such as ‘Standing at Fearful Attention’ and ‘Portugal’ suggested that the dictatorial regime was a symptom (the worst symptom) of graver ills– lack of courage and smallness of vision– woven into the nation's psyche. Other poems, such as ‘Lament of the Man Who Misses Being Blind’, seemed to hold religion and mysticism responsible for an obscurantism that made change difficult, if not impossible.

A publicist by profession, he is famous for inventing some of the most ingenious advertising slogans of his time, O’Neill was unusually adept at manipulating words and using them in an efficacious manner, but he refused to put that talent at the service of a lyrically lofty, feel-good sort of poetry (see ‘Simply Expressive’). Stridently anti-Romantic, and concerned about keeping humanity in its place as just one of earth's species, he did not believe that an especially harmonious world was possible, and he abhorred all attempts to escape the world, whether through mystical or poetical exaltations. His one hope, or consolation, explicitly stated in ‘St. Francis’s Empty Sandal’, was in the connection (never entirely peaceful) he felt with other members of the species.

Although most of his works are lost or confined to private collections, he was also a painter and a graphic composer of immense talent. Some of his work was shown, to great surprise and admiration, in 2002 at an exhibit on the surrealist movement.

José Saramago
José Saramago (1922–2010) was a Portuguese novelist who wrote works, such as "Memorial do Convento", and won the Nobel Prize in 1998.

title: Portuguese literature


text:
Dennis Dawson

Dennis Dawson (born September 28, 1949) is a Canadian politician and administrator. Dawson is a retired Canadian Senator and former Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. He was first elected as an MP in 1977 at the age 27, and was appointed to the Upper Chamber by Prime Minister Paul Martin in 2005.

Born in Quebec City, Quebec, Dawson's first entry into politics was spending five years as a trustee on the Commission des écoles catholiques de Québec. After that, Dawson represented the riding of Louis-Hébert, Quebec in the House of Commons from 1977 to 1984. He is a former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration.

In 2004, he ran in the federal election as a "star" candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the riding of Beauport but was beaten by Bloc Québécois candidate Christian Simard, losing by a ratio of nearly 2:1.

On August 2, 2005, Dawson was appointed to the Canadian Senate on the recommendation of Prime Minister Paul Martin. He represented the Liberal Party of Canada in the Upper Chamber until Justin Trudeau's removal of Liberal Senators from the Canadian Liberal caucus in 2014.

With the Senate Liberal Caucus facing losing official parliamentary caucus status in 2020 with a third of its caucus facing mandatory retirements on their turning age 75, Senator Joseph Day announced that the Senate Liberal Caucus had been dissolved and a new Progressive Senate Group formed in its wake, with the entire membership joining the new group, including this senator.

With Day's mandatory retirement in January 2020, on December 12, 2019, Jane Cordy tweeted that her colleagues in the PSG had selected her as the new leader, ostensibly effective that same date. Additionally, she subsequently announced later that day Terry Mercer would be moving into the Whip/Caucus Chair role, that Dawson would be become the new Deputy Leader, and that the interim monikers were being removed at the same time. Dawson resigned from the Senate on February 8, 2023.

He has two daughters, Cindy and Kathryn-Anne, and a son named Julian.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Dennis Dawson


text:
Paradise by the Dashboard Light

"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is a song written by Jim Steinman. It was released in 1977 on the album Bat Out of Hell, with vocals by American musicians Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley. An uncommonly long song for a single, it has become a staple of classic rock radio and has been described as the "greatest rock duet".

Background
"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" was one of seven songs developed for Bat Out of Hell, with the first three songs having originated from Steinman's Peter Pan-based rock musical, Neverland. Steinman, Meat Loaf, and Ellen Foley (who had been cast as Wendy in Neverland) had all worked together on the National Lampoon Road Tour, where the singers had a history of performing over-the-top musical comedy sketches together.

After numerous failed attempts by Steinman and Meat Loaf to secure record label support for the album, Mark "Moogy" Klingman brought the project to the attention of Utopia bandmate Todd Rundgren for potential production work. Rundgren, under the impression that the album had the support of RCA subsidiary Utopia Records, agreed to produce at Bearsville Studios near Woodstock, New York, where he was working as an engineer and producer. But Rundgren discovered that the Utopia Records deal did not exist, and was essentially paying for the album's production himself. Rundgren offered Albert Grossman, founder of Bearsville Studios and the Bearsville Records label, the right of first refusal.

Both Steinman and Rundgren were influenced by Phil Spector and his "Wall of Sound", and Rundgren crafted arrangements translated from Steinman's vision of what the song should be. Jim Steinman had stated that he wanted to write "the ultimate car/sex song in which everything goes horribly wrong in the end."

Composition
The song is divided into four parts:

Part 1: Paradise
The song opens with a male and female character reminiscing about days as a young high school couple on a date. They are parking by a lake and having fun, experiencing "paradise by the dashboard light", until the young male character insists they're "gonna go all the way tonight".

Part 2: Baseball broadcast
The male character's advances are mirrored by New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto broadcasting a portion of a baseball game that serves as a metaphor for the male character's attempts to achieve his goal, accompanied by funk instrumentation and back-and-forth dialog between the male and female characters.

Part 3: Let Me Sleep On It
Just as the couple is about to consummate, the female character suddenly sings "Stop right there!" She refuses to go any further unless the male character first promises to love her forever and marry her. Reluctant to make such a long-term commitment, the male character repeatedly asks her to consent and promises to give his answer in the morning. The female character remains steadfast, and the male character finally offers his promise: "I started swearing to my God and on my mother's grave/That I would love you to the end of time".

Part 4: Praying For the End of Time
Back in the present, both characters express how each can no longer stand the other. Remaining true to the vow he made on that night in the past, he is now "praying for the end of time" to arrive and relieve him from his obligation. The song gradually fades out, juxtaposing his gloomy "it was long ago, it was far away, it was so much better than it is today!" with her nostalgic "it never felt so good, it never felt so right, we were glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife".

In early live performances of the song, this part was followed by a spoken-word epilogue in which the two characters, presumably having been married for a number of years, argued about what to keep after the couple's divorce. The argument was cut short by the female shouting "...And I'll keep the baby!", which left Meat Loaf's character, previously unaware of the pregnancy, speechless; immediately after, he ended the argument by screaming incoherently at her. The exchange was repeated with different female vocalists, in different versions and with different endings, in most of Meat Loaf's subsequent live tours and remained in the set until his death, when it was still occasionally performed by Meat Loaf and his featured vocalist Patti Russo.

Production
After 10 days of rehearsals, the song was recorded at Bearsville Studios, with Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley providing vocals, producer Todd Rundgren playing guitar, Rundgren's Utopia bandmates Kasim Sulton on bass and Roger Powell on synthesizer, and Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band on piano and drums, respectively. Foley recorded her singing part in one take.

The baseball play-by-play section, written specifically for New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto using phrases he would actually say while announcing, was recorded by Rizzuto with Steinman and Rundgren at The Hit Factory in New York in 1976. Rizzuto publicly maintained he was unaware that his contribution would be equated with sex in the finished song. However, Meat Loaf asserts that Rizzuto was fully aware of the context of what he was recording, and feigned ignorance only to stifle criticism.

Meat Loaf felt that Rundgren's initial mix of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" rendered the song unsuitable for inclusion on the album. After several attempts by several people, John Jansen mixed the version of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" included on the album.

Distribution and release
Upon hearing the finished album, Albert Grossman at Bearsville Records turned it down, but E Street band member Steven Van Zandt contacted Steve Popovich, who accepted Bat Out Of Hell for his own Epic Records subsidiary, Cleveland International Records.

"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" was the third single released from Bat Out of Hell, 10 months after the album's release, following "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" and "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad". In October 1978, after the success of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" was re-released with "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" as the B-side, with this release peaking at No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Length
Even though the version of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" released as a single was shortened from the 8:28 album version to 7:55, it is one of the longest songs to be released uncut on one side of a 7-inch 45 rpm record. The only difference between the version on the album and the full version released as a single is that the single version fades out almost immediately after the final line is sung. In some countries, a shorter 5:32 edit was released. The largest change is the complete removal of the "baseball play-by-play" section.

According to Meat Loaf on VH1 Storytellers, the original length of the track was to be 27 minutes.

Music video
Meat Loaf convinced the label to give him US$30,000 1976 to produce films of live-on-soundstage performances of three of the songs from Bat Out of Hell, including "Paradise by the Dashboard Light". Ellen Foley, who sang on the album, declined to be on the Bat Out Of Hell tour, and Karla DeVito assumed live performance responsibilities, so the music video was created by syncing the video of DeVito's performance to the audio of Foley's vocals. 35mm prints of these films were distributed to movie theaters holding midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, as a short subject to play before the feature (in which Meat Loaf appeared). Very few of these prints are still extant and/or in playable condition.

The Old Grey Whistle Test broadcast the Bat Out of Hell promotional film, and audience response was such that they showed the film again the following week. Meat Loaf was invited to perform live on the show with the Neverland Express, and he and Karla DeVito's February, 1978 performance of "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" would become one of the show's benchmark performances.

The video became a staple on MTV in the network's early years. Rundgren speculated in a 2017 Billboard interview that the length of the song's video (the longest music video available at the time) made it ideal for VJs to play when they needed extra time between songs.

In the original video as released to television and in 35mm prints, the male/female "Hot Summer Night" prologue from "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" was spoken live by Jim Steinman and Karla DeVito before the song performance. On the Hits Out of Hell music video compilation, the prologue was removed and spliced in front of the video for "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth", ostensibly to properly replicate the album Bat Out of Hell, and the video for "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" goes right into the performance.

Reception
The single had modest success in the United States, peaking at number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 23, 1978, and remaining on the chart for 10 weeks. In the Netherlands, the single became Meat Loaf's biggest all-time hit, reaching number one at the end of 1978, going on to be a hit there again in 1988. In Belgium, the single stalled at number 2 where it stayed for 5 weeks, being blocked from the Number 1 position the whole time by the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.". In various Dutch all-time charts, such as the Radio 2 Top 2000 or Radio Veronica's All Time Top 1000, the song consistently charts inside the top 30. In the United Kingdom the song did not chart at all, but is well known and is a classic rock staple.

Cash Box said that "Ellen Foley offers an excellent foil to Meat Loaf's romantic foibles." Record World said that it has a boogie woogie beat and is "heavier and longer than" Meatloaf's previous single "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad."

In an interview with Foley after Meat Loaf's death in 2022, Chris Willman of Variety described the song as "rock's greatest duet" and potentially "the greatest duet ever recorded". Foley replied that the song was "pretty close behind" "Up Where We Belong" by Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker.

Personnel

 * Meat Loaf - male lead vocals, backing vocals (as Marvin Lee)
 * Ellen Foley - female lead vocals, backing vocals // music video: Karla DeVito
 * Todd Rundgren - guitar, backing vocals
 * Kasim Sulton - bass guitar
 * Roy Bittan - piano, keyboards
 * Jim Steinman - keyboards, "lascivious effects"
 * Roger Powell - synthesizer
 * Edgar Winter - saxophone
 * Max Weinberg - drums
 * Phil Rizzuto - baseball play-by-play
 * Rory Dodd - additional backing vocals

Legacy
Two tracks on Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, Meat Loaf's second installment of what would eventually be a 3-album Bat Out of Hell trilogy, contain lyrics that reference "Paradise by the Dashboard Light". "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" quotes "It was long ago and it was far away" and the next track on the album, Steinman's monologue "Wasted Youth", begins with the same "I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday" opening line from "Paradise by the Dashboard Light".

Steinman included "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" in Act One of his 2017 rock musical Bat Out of Hell: The Musical. The song is performed by the characters Falco and Sloane.

In popular culture
In April 2008, AT&T featured Meat Loaf and Tiffany in a parody of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" for their GoPhone national commercial campaign, releasing the commercial in both an extended music video version and a short commercial edit.

A cappella group The Dartmouth Aires sang the song in the 2011 season finale of the American television competition The Sing-Off and won second place.

On Glee's season 3 episode, "Nationals", Cory Monteith and Lea Michele performed the song as characters Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry. This episode was first broadcast on May 15, 2012.

In 2015, Tom Cruise performed a lip sync battle of the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Live performance recordings of the song have been included on several Meat Loaf albums, including Live at Wembley (1987), Live Around the World (1996), and Bat Out of Hell: Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (2004)

The song is also a popular hit at wedding receptions.

title: Paradise by the Dashboard Light


text:
User:Marcos

I am mainly active in the Esperanto Wikipedia, but also sometimes edit here on the English Wikipedia, on the German and on the Swahili Wikipedia. I was the first person to get the Swahili Wikipedia properly started.

de:Benutzer:Marcoscramer es:Usuario:Marcoscramer eo:Vikipediisto:Marcos sw:User:Marcos

title: User:Marcos


text:
Horizon League

The Horizon League is a collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the league's eleven member schools are located in and near the Great Lakes region.

The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midwestern City Conference. The conference changed its name to Midwestern Collegiate Conference in 1985 and then the Horizon League in 2001. The conference started with a membership of six teams and has fluctuated in size with 24 different schools as members at different times. The league currently has 11 members.

The Horizon League currently sponsors 19 sports and is a non-football conference.

Foundation (1978–1979)
In May 1978, DePaul University hosted a meeting with representatives from Bradley, Dayton, Detroit, Illinois State, Loyola–Chicago, Air Force, and Xavier who all agreed in principle that a new athletic conference was needed. Further progress was made through a series of early 1979 meetings in San Francisco, Chicago, and St. Louis that included participation by Butler, Creighton, Marquette, and Oral Roberts. On June 16, 1979, the Midwestern City Conference (nicknamed the MCC or Midwestern City 6) was formed by charter members Butler, Evansville, Loyola, Oklahoma City, Oral Roberts, and Xavier, with Detroit joining the following year. , Detroit, now known as Detroit Mercy, is the only remaining member from the league's original members.

Maturity (1980–1992)
In 1980, the league established its headquarters in Champaign, Illinois. The MCC gained an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament in 1981, followed by the announcement that Saint Louis University would be joining the following season. The University of Notre Dame joined the conference for all sports except basketball and football in 1982. The conference attained automatic qualification for the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship in 1984 and the conference moved its headquarters to Indianapolis. Three changes occurred in the summer of 1985: Oklahoma City dropped out of the NCAA altogether; the conference name was altered slightly to Midwestern Collegiate Conference; and the conference began sponsoring women's athletics. The latter triggered Notre Dame's temporary withdrawal from the league as its women's teams were contracted to the North Star Conference. ESPN began televising the MCC Championship game in 1986. In 1987, Oral Roberts left the conference while Dayton joined and Notre Dame rejoined. The conference earned its first at-large bid to the men's basketball tournament and automatic qualification to the NCAA Men's Soccer Championship in 1989. In 1991, the conference received an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament and lost members Marquette and Saint Louis. Duquesne and La Salle joined the MCC in 1992, the same year the conference gained an automatic berth to the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship. Duquesne and Dayton left the conference in 1993.

Modern era (1990–present)
The largest non-merger conference expansion in NCAA history occurred on December 9, 1993, when Cleveland State, UIC, Northern Illinois, Wisconsin–Green Bay, Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and Wright State left the Mid-Continent Conference to join the Midwestern Collegiate Conference beginning with the 1994–95 academic year. With Evansville's departure to the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), there were 12 league members. Xavier, Notre Dame, and La Salle withdrew the following summer of 1995, followed by Northern Illinois in 1997. The conference changed its name to the Horizon League on June 4, 2001, in part due to the initials causing confusion between the MCC and the Mid-Continent Conference, who also used the initials. That year, Youngstown State University joined from the Mid-Con, and on May 17, 2006, Valparaiso University announced it would do the same in 2007.

In April 2013, the split of the original Big East Conference caused a ripple effect that fell to the Horizon League; Loyola announced that it would leave the Horizon League effective July 1 to join the Missouri Valley Conference, who itself lost Creighton to the reconfigured Big East.

Butler also left the Horizon League. They spent a season in the Atlantic 10 before joining the Big East.

The Horizon announced that Oakland University, formerly of the Summit League, would immediately replace Loyola within a month.

The next change in the Horizon League's membership came in 2015 with the arrival of Northern Kentucky University from the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Two more membership changes were announced near the end of the 2016–17 school year. First, Valparaiso announced on May 25, 2017, that it would leave for the MVC effective July 1. The Crusaders replaced Wichita State, who announced that it would leave the MVC for the American Athletic Conference. Three days before Valparaiso's departure, the Horizon League Board of Directors unanimously approved the membership of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) to replace Valparaiso, also effective July 1.

The start of the 2020s set further membership changes into motion, with the arrivals of Purdue Fort Wayne and Robert Morris from the Summit League and the Northeast Conference (NEC), respectively, announced on August 5, 2019 and June 15, 2020. This brought the Horizon League up to 12 full-time members for the first time since the 1994-95 season. It was short-lived, however, as the UIC Flames were reported to be following many of their former conference colleagues to the MVC effective July 1, 2022.

On July 6, 2022, the Horizon League and Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) jointly announced that they would merge their men's tennis leagues under the Horizon banner, effective immediately. The five OVC members that sponsored the sport became Horizon associates. At the same time, the Horizon announced that Belmont, which had just left the OVC for the Missouri Valley Conference (which sponsors tennis only for women), would become a men's tennis associate, and Chicago State, which became a D-I independent after leaving the Western Athletic Conference days earlier, would become an associate in both men's and women's tennis. Two tennis associates left after the 2023–24 season. Men's and women's associate Chicago State joined the NEC, which sponsors the sport for both sexes, and men's associate Lindenwood dropped nine NCAA sports, including men's tennis.

Prior to the 2023–24 academic year, the conference announced a brand refresh with the introduction of a new secondary logo. The logo is a gold stylized H that incorporates the arch of the conference's primary logo and a number one to symbolize unity.

, eight of the 11 full Horizon League members are former members of the Mid-Con (now known as the Summit League), with the exceptions being Detroit Mercy, Northern Kentucky, and Robert Morris.

Current full members

 * Notes:

Former full members
Nicknames and school names reflect those used in the last school year of conference membership.

 * Notes:

Membership timeline
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Sponsored sports
The Horizon League sponsors championship competition in nine men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports:

For 2020–21, Detroit Mercy, Wright State and Green Bay announced eliminating men’s and women’s tennis, while Youngstown State reinstated men's swimming & diving.

Men's sponsored sports by school
Departing members in pink.

Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the Horizon League which are played by Horizon schools:

In addition to the above sports, Northern Kentucky will add men's triathlon, which has no NCAA recognition of any kind, as a varsity sport in 2024–25.

Women's sponsored sports by school
Departing member in pink.

Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Horizon League which are played by Horizon schools:

Broadcasting rights
In 2006, the conference launched the Horizon League Network (HLN) as the centerpiece of a revamped web portal. The digital network aired over 200 live events free on the league's official website at the time.

The Horizon League and WebStream Productions launched a completely redesigned HLN website in September 2009. The site serves as a portal to hundreds of live and on-demand videos while giving its users the ability to interact on an array of social media platforms.

The Horizon League Network migrated to ESPN3 in 2014, and over 700 events streamed live in 2015–16. Horizon League coverage was absorbed into ESPN+, along with other mid-major conferences, in 2018. The conference extended its deal with ESPN in 2021. Over 500 events are aired on ESPN+ annually, along with select men's basketball games airing on ESPN2 and ESPNU and the men's and women's basketball championships airing on ESPN and ESPNU.

Basketball games not selected for broadcast on national linear television are often televised by regional sports networks and over-the-air channels within the teams’ home markets. In recent years, WMYD Detroit, Marquee Sports Network, Bally Sports Ohio, Bally Sports Great Lakes, Bally Sports Wisconsin, and SportsNet Pittsburgh have broadcast multiple men’s and women’s basketball contests.

Historic
From 1995 to 2011, the Horizon League sent an impressive 24 qualifiers (7 At-Large berths) to the Men's NCAA basketball tournament, making the Horizon League one of the most prolific mid-major (non-power 6) conferences in all of college basketball. Even more impressively, those 24 clubs produced 22 wins in that span, including five "Sweet 16" appearances, making the Horizon League the only non-BCS conference to have Sweet 16 participants in five NCAA tournaments during that span (2003, 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2011). Four schools from the conference have produced "modern-day" Sweet 16 appearances – Loyola (1985), Xavier (1990), Butler (2003, 2007, 2010 and 2011), and Milwaukee (2005). The Horizon League also compiled a 19–12 record in the NCAA tournament from 2003-2011, ranking tops among all 32 NCAA Division I conferences for winning percentage (.613) in March Madness during that span. This historic stretch of conference dominance was thanks to NCAA Tournament wins from Butler (15), Milwaukee (3), and Cleveland State (1). Butler appeared in the men's national championship game in both 2010 and 2011. Since the NCAA began seeding teams in 1979, Loyola's 4 seed in the 1985 tournament is the best for a Horizon League team. The Horizon League currently holds the best winning percentage among non-BCS conferences in the men's NCAA basketball Tournament (.488, 7th overall amongst the 32 Division I conferences).

One former Horizon League member claims a national championship from the era before the league's creation. In the 1963 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, Loyola defeated two-time defending champ Cincinnati. Before post-season tournaments determined champions, former Horizon member Butler claimed national titles in 1924 and 1929.

The League hosted the men's Final Four in 1991, 1997, 2000, 2006, 2009 and 2010. It also hosted the women's Final Four in 2005 and 2007. Horizon League commissioner Jonathan B. LeCrone, who is in his 17th year as league commissioner, just finished a five-year term on the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee.

2000s
As stated on their official website, the recent success of Horizon League athletic teams on the national stage heightened the visibility of the league and its member schools and quickly moved it closer toward its stated goal of becoming one of the nation's top 10 Division I NCAA athletic conferences.

2002–03
In the 2003 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, the Horizon League entered two teams for the first time since 1998. Milwaukee, who earned a 12 seed in its first bid to the tournament since joining the conference, lost by one point to Notre Dame in the first round. Butler, who earned both an at-large bid and a 12 seed, made its fifth tournament appearance in seven years. The Bulldogs made it to the Sweet 16 with victories over No. 20 (5 seed) Mississippi State and No. 14 (4 seed) Louisville before falling to No. 3 (1 seed) Oklahoma in the East Regional. The Bulldogs finished the year ranked No. 21 in the final ESPN/USA Today Top 25 Poll.

2004–05
In the men's 2005 NCAA basketball tournament, the Horizon League enjoyed one of its best showings ever as 12 seed Milwaukee marched to the Sweet 16 with victories over No. 19 (5 seed) Alabama and No. 14 (4 seed) Boston College before they fell to then-No. 1 and eventual tournament runner-up Illinois. Milwaukee ranked as high as No. 23 in the March 7 ESPN/USA Today Top 25 Poll.

2005–06
In the 2006 NCAA basketball tournament, 11 seed Milwaukee once again advanced in the Tournament by upsetting the No. 20 (6 seed) Oklahoma 82–74. The Panthers, led by first year head coach Rob Jeter, fell to eventual national champion No. 11 (AP)/No. 10 (ESPN) (3 seed) Florida in the second round of the tournament. The league had a team advance past the first round for the second straight year and third time in the last four years.

2006–07
In the 2006–07 basketball season, Butler won the Preseason NIT tournament in Madison Square Garden with wins over in-state rivals Notre Dame and Indiana in the NIT's Midwest regional bracket, followed by wins over No. 21 Tennessee and No. 23 Gonzaga in the NIT Final Four in Madison Square Garden. Later, the Bulldogs claimed victory over Purdue in the Wooden Tradition. On February 5, 2007, Butler became the first school in Horizon League history to rank in the Top 10 of the national college basketball polls, as the Bulldogs reached No. 9 and No. 10 in the ESPN/USA Today and AP polls, respectively. The Bulldogs ended their season with a No. 21 ranking in the final AP poll, a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament and a Sweet 16 berth by beating Old Dominion and Maryland before losing to eventual national champion Florida. Wright State also qualified for the NCAA tournament as the winner of the Horizon League tournament championship and tying Butler for the regular season championship. As a 14 seed, the Raiders fell to No. 13 (AP)/No. 11 (ESPN) (3 seed) Pittsburgh in the first round.

2007–08
During the 2007–08 basketball season, Butler won the Great Alaska Shootout with wins over Michigan, Virginia Tech and Texas Tech, and also claimed wins over Ohio State and Florida State, who extended their record against BCS schools to 10–1 since the start of the 2006–07 season. As a 7 seed in the 2008 NCAA basketball tournament, the Bulldogs beat 10 seed South Alabama before falling in overtime to No. 5 (AP)/No. 4 (ESPN) (2 seed) Tennessee. Butler finished the season ranked No. 11 in the AP poll and No. 14 in the ESPN/USA Today poll. Cleveland State also earned a 6 seed in the NIT, losing in the first round to Dayton.

2008–09
Starting in 2009, regional convenience store and gas station chain Speedway served as the title sponsor of the conference tournament that Cleveland State won and earned the Horizon League's automatic bid to the NCAA Tourney while Butler earned an at-large bid. Butler, a 9 seed, lost in the first round to LSU while 13 seed Cleveland State upset No. 8 (AP)/No. 9 (ESPN) (4 seed) Wake Forest 84–69 (and achieved the third biggest upset in NCAA history winning by 15 points) and shocked the nation in the first round of play before falling to 12 seed Arizona in the second round of tournament play. Butler finished the season ranked No. 22 in the final AP poll and No. 25 in the final ESPN/USA Today poll.

2009–10
After defeating No. 25 (12 seed) UTEP, 13 seed Murray State and No. 4 (1 seed) Syracuse, the No. 8 (ESPN)/No. 11 (AP) (5 seed) Butler men's team defeated No. 7 Kansas State, the 2 seed in the West, by a score of 63–56 to advance to their first Final Four. After beating the No. 12 (ESPN)/No. 13 (AP) (5 seed) Michigan State Spartans 52–50 in the national semifinals, Butler played in Indianapolis against the South Regional Champions, No. 3 (1 seed) Duke for the NCAA Division I National Championship. Butler lost what many call the most thrilling college basketball game in a generation, losing 61–59 in a game that came down to the final play. This is the farthest any team has reached in the tournament while a member of the Horizon League. Butler was the first Division I men's team to play in the Final Four in its hometown since UCLA in 1972, and the first of either sex since Texas played in the 1987 Women's Final Four on its home court.

Also of note, former Milwaukee head coach Bruce Pearl coached the Tennessee Volunteers to the Elite Eight and narrowly lost the opportunity to play Butler by losing to Michigan State, who Butler beat in the Final Four.

2010–11
Butler once again represented the Horizon League in the tournament with another very strong showing. As an 8 seed, Butler defeated (9 seed) Old Dominion, narrowly upset Pittsburgh (who was No. 1 ranked and seeded), Wisconsin (4 seed) and Florida (2 seed) to return to the Final Four. Butler faced VCU, an 11 seed Cinderella team who unexpectedly reached the Final Four as the first team to play five tournament games to reach the Final Four, due to VCU's participation in the inaugural First Four Round. After Butler defeated VCU 70–62, the Bulldogs were in the national championship game for the second consecutive season. This time they faced Connecticut at Reliant Stadium in Houston. The Huskies were too much for the Butler Bulldogs to handle, as Butler lost the game 53–41 in an unusually low-scoring national championship game. This made Butler national runner-up for the second straight season.

2011–12
In the 2012 postseason, the Detroit Titans won their first Horizon League Championship since 1999 under head coach Ray McCallum. They defeated top seeded Valparaiso 70–50. The tournament MVP was son Ray McCallum, Jr.

2012–13
Valparaiso was the regular season champion of the Horizon for the second straight year. It defeated Wright State 62–54 in the championship game under coach Bryce Drew for its first Horizon League Championship. This was the first season that the league was absent of Butler, who departed for the Atlantic 10.

2013–14
Green Bay won the regular season championship in 2014. It was upset by Milwaukee in the tournament semi-final. Milwaukee would go on to win the tournament, knocking off Wright State.

2014–15
Following a good outcome, finishing as the 2014 champions, the Milwaukee Panthers were banned from the 2015 NCAA Tournament and postseason play. Valparaiso won the regular and postseason championships. It entered the NCAA tournament as a 13th seed, although losing in the first round.

2015–16
The 2015 season ushered in the arrival of the Northern Kentucky Norse to the league, who departed from the Atlantic Sun Conference. Valparaiso won the regular season championship again but was defeated by Green Bay in the tournament championship 78–69.

Other sports
The Milwaukee baseball team made national headlines during the 1999 College World Series by upsetting No. 1 ranked Rice in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. In the 2004–05 academic year, Milwaukee's men's soccer team defeated 16th-ranked San Francisco, while Detroit upset Michigan in women's soccer in their respective NCAA tournaments. Also that year, Butler's men's cross country team finished fourth in the nation at the NCAA Cross-Country Championships, and their own Victoria Mitchell became the first Horizon League athlete to win an individual national title when she captured the 3,000 Meter Steeplechase at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Green Bay also upset 6th-ranked Oregon State in the opening round of the NCAA softball tournament.

Although the league does not sponsor football, current members Robert Morris and Youngstown State play in Division I FCS. Youngstown State plays in the Missouri Valley Football Conference; Robert Morris originally planned to play the 2020–21 season as an independent and join Big South Conference football in July 2021, but COVID-19 issues led the Big South to bring Robert Morris into its football league for its rescheduled spring 2021 season.

Facilities

 * Notes

title: Horizon League