This article outlines the formation of architectural theory in Portugal and Brazil during the nineteenth century, arguing that such theory was initially contained within the social circle and methodological scope of literary history. It makes this case by following the architectural discourses of writers, literary critics, and ethnographers. This investigation reveals an evolving set of architectural references and methods with which to approach the built environment, while also raising challenges for the cross-disciplinary appropriation of architectural theories. The critique of architectural character in Portugal and Brazil from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries derives much of its motivation and methodology from literary history and criticism. Moreover, it plays out to a great extent within literary circles, even as a Portuguese-language architectural press was emerging during the Belle Époque. I seek to show here how traditionalist architecture in Portugal and Brazil has a longer historical background and clearer theoretical roots than some scholarship on the topic tends to assume. Portuguese-speaking architects and architectural critics appropriated the goals and perspectives of literary historians, formulated long before the rise of traditionalist architectural styles. This appropriation could be seen in an implicit dialogue between Belle Époque architectural traditionalism and ethnographic portrayals of national character construed throughout the second half of the nineteenth century
