For social, political and even geographical reasons, Portuguese Romanticism arrived late, especially when compared with that of Germany or Great Britain. As far as its literary aspect is concerned, Romanticism cannot be said to have existed in Portugal before 1825, the year in which J. B. de Almeida Garrett published Camões, a long narrative poem in ten cantos. The main romantic characteristic of this poem is the fact that it is not on a Greek or a Latin theme, but has instead a Portuguese sentimental theme: the adventurous and unhappy life of Camões, the Renaissance author considered to be the national poet of Portugal. Nevertheless, Garrett's Camões has both language and versification that are still strongly neoclassical and far removed from what is expected from a romantic poem.

The first thoroughly romantic work of Portuguese literature was published three years later, in 1828 – namely, Adozinda. This is a mid-sized poem (the original, octavo edition was 60 pages long), also written by Almeida Garrett, and it has a truly romantic feature: obeying Herder's theories, it takes folk literature as its model. In fact, not only is the story that the poem narrates based on a traditional ballad, but also the language used in it clearly differs from neoclassical style, and its versification is markedly influenced by Portuguese folk poetry, Adozinda being almost entirely written in lines of seven feet, the metre of most Portuguese oral poems.