Portuguese literature
[_sic_] _Quadragesimais e da Paschoa_ (1609) and _Tratados das Festas e
Vidas dos Santos_ (2 pts., 1612, 15) of the Dominican FREI ANTONIO FEO
(1573-1627) perhaps gain rather than lose by being read, not heard. In
the clearness and precision of their prose they are scarcely inferior
to the remarkable _Sermões_ (3 pts., 1617, 18, 25) of the Augustinian
FREI PHILIPE DA LUZ (1574-1633), confessor to the Duke of Braganza
(afterwards King João IV), in whose palace at Villa Viçosa he died. He,
too, writes _sem grandes eloquencias_; he is as precise as Feo in his
use of words, and his vocabulary is as extensive. Purity, concision,
clearness, and harmony give him, together with Feo, Ceita, and Veiga, a
high place in Portuguese prose.
The sermons for which the Dominican FREI PEDRO CALVO (born _c._ 1550)
was celebrated were published in _Homilias de Quaresma_ (2 pts., 1627,
9), and at the repeated request of a friend he wrote his _Defensam
das Lagrimas dos ivstos persegvidos_ (1618) to prove that ‘tears shed
in time of trouble do not lessen merit’. The _Sermões_ (1618) and
_Considerações_ (1619, 20, 33) of FREI THOMAS DA VEIGA (1578-1638),
like his father a Professor of Coimbra University, are written in a
style of great excellence, as, although a trifle more redundant[570]
and latinized, is that of his contemporary, like him a Franciscan,
FREI JOÃO DA CEITA (1578-1633), whose prose has a natural grace and
harmony, if it is less pure and indigenous than that of Luz. His best
known works are the _Quadragena de Sermoens_ (1619) and _Quadragena
Segunda_ (1625). Two more volumes of _Sermões_ (1634, 5) appeared after
his death. Two slightly later writers were FREI CRISTOVAM DE LISBOA
(†1652), brother of Manuel Severim de Faria, and FREI CRISTOVAM DE
ALMEIDA (1620-79), Bishop of Martyria. The former, author of _Jardim
da Sagrada Escriptura_ (1653) and _Consolaçam de Afflictos e Allivio
de Lastimados_ (1742), in the preface to his _Santoral de Varios
Sermões_ (1638) deplores the new fashion of certain preachers who
hide their meaning under their eloquence. He is himself sometimes
inclined to be florid. Bishop Almeida attained a reputation for great
eloquence even in the days of Antonio Vieira.[571] His _Sermões_
(1673, 80, 86) are simpler than those of Vieira, but for the reader
their prose lacks the quiet precision of Ceita, Veiga, or Luz, whose
sermons may be considered one of the sources from which a greater
master of Portuguese, Manuel Bernardes, derived his magic. The Jesuit
LUIS ALVAREZ (1615?-1709?), who was born a few years after Vieira, and
lived on into the eighteenth century, also had a great reputation as
a preacher. The fire is absent from the printed page, but his works,
_Sermões da Quaresma_ (3 pts., 1688, 94, 99), _Amor Sagrado_ (1673),
and _Ceo de graça, inferno custoso_ 1692), are notable for the purity
of their prose.
The religious works of the seventeenth, as of the sixteenth century
are very various in subject and treatment. FREI JOÃO CARDOSO (†1655),
author of _Ruth Peregrina_ (2 pts., 1628, 54), also wrote a lengthy
commentary on the 113th Psalm in twenty-one discourses: _Jornada Dalma
Libertada_ (1626). Ten years earlier a Jew, JOÃO BAPTISTA D’ESTE,
had published in excellent Portuguese a translation of the Psalms:
_Consolaçam Christam e Lvz para o Povo Hebreo_ (1616). His title was
suggested by that of a far more remarkable book by another Jew, SAMUEL
USQUE (fl. 1540), _Consolaçam ás Tribulaçoens de Israel_, written
probably between 1540 and 1550[572] and first printed at Ferrara by
Abraham ben Usque in 1553. The author was the son of Spanish Jews who
had taken refuge in Portugal, where he was born, probably at the end
of the fifteenth century.[573] His famous work is an account of the
sufferings of the Jewish race. In three dialogues Jacob (_Ycabo_),
Nahum (_Numeo_), and Zachariah (_Zicareo_) converse as shepherds.
Israel, in person, relates his sorrows down to the fall of Jerusalem,
an event which is described in detail, and so on to the persecutions in
European countries (_novas gentes_), and at the end of each dialogue
the prophets administer their comfort. The book closes with a chorus
of rapturous psalms in biblical prose, rejoicing at the coming end
of Israel’s tribulations and calling for vengeance on their enemies,
and thus finishes on a note of joyful faith and courageous hope,
without an inkling of charity. The first dialogue, which condenses Old
Testament history, has a rhythmical, luxuriant style, rich in Oriental
imagery, but later, where Roman history is the authority, or in the
tragic account of the persecution of Jews in Portugal[574] under João
II and the two succeeding kings, the style is shorn of rhetoric. Nor
is there a trace of false ornament in a long passage of wonderful
eloquence, Israel’s final complaint and invocation to sky and earth,
waters and mortal creatures. The agony and awful glow of indignation
at these recent events had a restraining influence on the style, which
loses nothing by this simplicity. Quieter descriptions are those of
the shepherd’s life and of the chase in the first, and of spring and
evening in the third part.
The Jesuit DIOGO MONTEIRO (1561-1634), when towards the end of his life
he published his _Arte de Orar_ (1631), promised, should his ‘great
occupations’ allow, to print very soon the second volume dealing
with the divine attributes. This did not appear in that generation:
_Meditações dos attribvtos divinos_ (Roma, 1671). The _Arte de Orar_
contains twenty-nine treatises (604 ff.). Its subjects are various (of
the virtue of magnificence; of the esteem in which singing is held by
God, &c.), and they are presented with fervour and clear concision, and
especially with a complete absence of oratorical effect. Quintilian
takes part in one of the six dialogues which compose the _Peregrinaçam
Christam_ (1620) by TRISTÃO BARBOSA DE CARVALHO (†1632); he is on a
pilgrimage from Lisbon to the tomb of Saint Isabel at Coimbra, but he
expresses himself in excellent Portuguese, modelled perhaps on that of
Arraez. The prose of the _Retrato de Prvdentes, Espelho de Ignorantes_
(1664) by the Jesuit FRANCISCO AIRES (1597-1664) often rises to
eloquence, notably in the fervent prayers. His _Theatro dos Trivmphos
Divinos contra os Desprimores Hvmanos_ (1658) is of a more practical
character. The Franciscan FREI MANUEL DOS ANJOS (1595-1653) laid no
claim to originality in his _Politica predicavel e doutrina moral
do bom governo do mundo_ (1693), written in a clear and correct but
slightly redundant[575] style.
FREI LUIS DOS ANJOS (_c._ 1570-1625) in his _Iardim de Portugal_ (1626)
gathered edifying anecdotes of saintly women from various writers, and
set them down in good Portuguese prose. The Franciscan FREI PEDRO DE
SANTO ANTONIO (_c._ 1570-1641) in his _Iardim Spiritual, tirado dos
Sanctos e Varoens spiritvaes_ (1632) contented himself with translation
of his authorities, adding, he modestly says, ‘some things of my own of
not much importance’. He carefully avoided interlarding his Portuguese
with Latin, his object being _fazer prato a todos_. Even more humble is
the work of the Cistercian FREI FRADIQUE ESPINOLA (_c._ 1630-1708), who
compiled in his _Escola Decurial_ (12 pts., 1696-1721) an encyclopaedia
of themes so various as the fate of King Sebastian, the duties of
women, and the habits of storks. Although it lacks the literary
pretensions of the _Divertimento erudito_ by the Augustinian FREI
JOÃO PACHECO (1677-?1747), it contains some curious matter. A similar
miscellany of anecdotes and precepts was written by João Baptista
de Castro in the eighteenth century: _Hora de Recreio nas ferias de
maiores estudos_ (2 pts., 1742, 3).
The life of the ardent FREI ANTONIO DAS CHAGAS (1631-82) abounded in
contrasts. Born at Vidigueira, of an old Alentejan family, Antonio da
Fonseca Soares began his career as a soldier in 1650; a duel (arising
out of one of his many love affairs), in which he killed his man, drove
him to Brazil, and it was only after several years of distinguished
service[576] that he returned to Portugal, perhaps in 1657. In 1661 he
attained the rank of captain, but in the following year abandoned his
military career, and in 1663 professed in the Franciscan convent at
Evora, exchanging the composition of gongoric verse for a voluminous
correspondence in prose, and his unregenerate days of dissipation
for a glowing and saintly asceticism. (_Trocando as galas em burel e
os caprichos em cilicios_ are the words with which he veils the real
sincerity of his conversion.) Preferring the humbler but strenuous
duties of missionary in Portugal and Spain to the bishopric of Lamego,
he founded the missionary convent of Varatojo, and died there twenty
years after his novitiate. During those years he built up and exercised
a powerful spiritual influence throughout Portugal, and it continued
after his death. Few of his poems survive, since he committed the
greater part of his profane verse to the flames, but some of his
_romances_ may still be read. It is, however, as a prose-writer,
especially in his _Cartas Espirituaes_ (2 pts., 1684, 7), that he holds
a foremost place in Portuguese literature. There is less affectation
in these more familiar letters than in his _Sermões genuinos_ (1690)
or his _Obras Espirituaes_ (1684). The very titles of some of his
shorter treatises, _Vozes do Ceo e Tremores da Terra, Espelho do
Espelho_, show that he had not even now altogether escaped the false
taste of the time, and artificial flowers of speech, plays on words,
laboured metaphors and antitheses appear in his prose. But if it has
not the simple severity of a Bernardes, it possesses so persuasive, so
passionate an energy, and is of so clear a fervour and harmony that its
eloquence is felt to be genuine.
The Jesuit FREI JOÃO DA FONSECA (1632-1701), in the preface to one
of his works, _Sylva Moral e Historica_ (1696), which may have given
Bernardes the idea of his _Nova Floresta_, rejects affected periods
and new phrases, and there is no false rhetoric in his _Espelho de
Penitentes_ (1687), _Satisfaçam de Aggravos_ (1700), which takes the
form of dialogues between a hermit and a soldier, and other devotional
works. Another Jesuit, ALEXANDRE DE GUSMÃO (1629-1724), although born
at Lisbon, spent most (eighty-five years) of his long life in Brazil.
He wrote, among other works, _Rosa de Nazareth nas Montanhas de Hebron_
(1715), compiled from various histories of the Company of Jesus, and
_Historia do Predestinado Peregrino e seu Irmão Precito_ (1682). The
latter is an allegory in six books which lacks the human interest of
Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, which it preceded. It describes the
journey of two brothers, _Predestinado_ and _Precito_, out of Egypt to
Jerusalem (Heaven) and Babylon (Hell). The style is simpler and more
direct than might be inferred from the inflated title, and often has an
effective if studied eloquence.[577]
Vieira dying is reported to have said that the Portuguese language was
safe in the keeping of Padre Manuel Bernardes. The aged Jesuit, who
maintained his interest in literature to the end, may have received
Bernardes’ _Luz e Calor_[578] (1696) in the last year of his life,
and the _Exercicios Espirituaes_ (2 vols., 1686) had appeared ten
years earlier. Other works, _Sermões e Praticas_ (1711),[579] _Nova
Floresta_ (5 vols., 1706-28), _Os Ultimos Fins do Homem_ (1727),
_Varios Tratados_ (2 vols., 1737), were soon forthcoming to justify
the prophecy. MANUEL BERNARDES (1644-1710), the son of João Antunes
and Maria Bernardes, was born at Lisbon, studied law and philosophy
at Coimbra University, and at the age of thirty entered the Lisbon
Oratory, where he spent thirty-six years. That was all his life,