Historians tend to date the beginnings of Portuguese modernism with the Lisbon-based literary journal Orpheu, which appeared in 1915. In this essay, I want to complicate this typical view by showing how the conditions for an emergent modernism were formed much earlier, in the context of a literary/political debate of the middle and late nineteenth century known as the "Questao Coimbra" [Coimbra Question]. I shall argue that artistic modernism in Europe, and especially in Portugal, needs to be understood as a complex response to industrial modernity. I also want to show that many of the tendencies we associate with modern art--a rejection of bourgeois values, a desire to "make it new," a promotion of vanguard ideas--were taking shape far in advance of Portugal's actual modernization, in a series of polemical essays that were the subject of considerable controversy. **********
