Portuguese literature
_O Tesoiro_; deliberately false and artificial, as _A Civilisação_;
a macabre fantasy, as _O Defunto_; or half-intentional caricature,
as _O Primo Basilio_ and _Os Maias_. What more chimerical than _A
Reliquia_ or more elusive than _O Suave Milagre_, or more fanciful
than _O Mandarim_ (1879), in which without himself knowing China the
author makes his readers know it! All through his life he was as it
were groping through Manueline for a purer Gothic; the pity was that
his education from the first should have thrown him into contact
with French models--so that his very language too often reads like
translated French--instead of directing him to a truer realism (such
as that of his nearer neighbour Pereda), to which he turned in his
last works, and in which he might have written regional masterpieces
had he not died at a moment when his art apparently had lost nothing
of its vigour. More probably, however, his still unsatisfied craving
for perfection would have sought relief in mysticism. His first novel
was a sensational story written in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão:
_O Mysterio da Estrada de Cintra_ (1870), originally published in the
_Diario de Noticias_ (July 24-September 27, 1870). It was, however,
_O Crime do Padre Amaro_ (1876), in which he grafted the naturalistic
novel on the quiet little town of Leiria, and the two notable if
unpleasant Lisbon stories _O Primo Basilio_ (1878) and _Os Maias_
(1880), that marked him out as the most powerful writer of the time in
Portugal. But he was still feeling his way. _A Reliquia_ (1887) is as
different from _Os Maias_ as it is from the remarkable and charming
letters of _A Correspondencia de Fradique Mendes_ (1891) and his last
two novels, _A Illustre Casa de Ramires_ (1900), most Portuguese of
his works, and _A Cidade e as Serras_ (1901). The three fragments
in _Ultimas Paginas_ (1912) were probably written earlier. There
are samples of all his phases in his _Contos_ (1902), and the short
story gave scope for his powers of observation and insight without
calling for an elaborate plot, in which he often failed. _A Cidade e
as Serras_, after developing the earlier story _A Civilisação_, is
but a fascinating succession of country scenes. All Eça de Queiroz’
characters are caricatures, some more so, others less, but they are
nevertheless true to a certain degree, that is to say, they are good
caricatures, and living, and this is so especially in these later
novels, which show how great a regionalist writer was lost in him
through the influence of French schools. Yet no one can deny that his
works have an originality of their own as well as power and personal
charm, and all contain some striking character-sketches or delightful
descriptions that are not easily forgotten.
The dullness of the naturalistic novels of JULIO LOURENÇO PINTO
(1842-1907) is not relieved by Eça de Queiroz’ pleasant irony and
definite characterization. These ‘scenes of contemporary life’,
while they display a praiseworthy restraint, give the idea rather
of exercises in imitation of a French exemplar or of one of Eça de
Queiroz’ early novels than of living stories. Their style is slovenly,
the development of the plot prolix and monotonous. A certain interest
attaches to _Margarida_ (1879)--although even here the author is too
methodical in detailing the past lives of the four protagonists, the
nonentity Luiz, the aspiring Adelina (a Portuguese Madame Bovary),
Fernando, and Margarida, after they have been duly presented in the
opening pages--and to the descriptions of a fair, a bull-fight,
a flood, or provincial politics in _Vida Atribulada_ (1880), _O
Senhor Deputado_ (1882), _Esboços do Natural_ (1882), and _O Homem
Indispensavel_ (1884). Snr. JAIME DE MAGALHÃES LIMA (born in 1857)
in _O Transviado_ (1899), _Na Paz do Senhor_ (1903), and _O Reino
da Saudade_ (1904), has written novels _à thèse_ which are quite as
interesting as naturalistic novels and more natural, but his art,
especially in the presentation of contemporary politics, is a little
too photographic. Snr. LUIZ DE MAGALHÃES (born in 1859), author of
several volumes of verse, wrote a single novel, _O Brasileiro Soares_
(1886). It would offer little new in theme or treatment to distinguish
it from other naturalistic novels were it not for the author’s success
in drawing in Joaquim Soares a natural and attractive portrait of
the Portuguese returned rich from Brazil (the _Brasileiro_). None
of these novelists can rival the reputation of FRANCISCO TEIXEIRA
DE QUEIROZ (1848-1919). He became prominent as a novelist of the
realistic school over forty years ago when under the pseudonym of
BENTO MORENO he inaugurated the series of his _Comedia do Campo_ (8
vols.), of which the last volume is _Ao Sol e á Chuva_ (1916), followed
by a second series: _Comedia Burgueza_ (7 vols.), which began with
_Os Noivos_ (1879). The obvious defects of his work--its laborious
realism, its insistence on medical or physical details, its vain load
of pedantry[687]--need not obscure its real merits. The careful style
has occasional lapses, the psychology is thin, the conversations
commonplace. His art, like a winter sunshine, fails to penetrate.
Yet even in the _Comedia Burgueza_, where the interest must depend
on the psychology, he succeeds in _D. Agostinho_ and _A Morte de D.
Agostinho_ (1895) in giving individuality to that strange rickety
figure of the old _fidalgo_ in his ruined Lisbon _palacio_. And in the
Minho scenes of the _Comedia do Campo_ his scrupulous descriptions
obtain their full effects. In the _romaria_ (pilgrimage), the
_cantadeira_ (improvisator), the _diligencia_ with its load of priests
(in _Amor Divino_), the girl shepherdess, the _abbade_ fond of hunting
wolves and boars, the old women spinning, the lawsuit of centuries over
the fruit of an orange-tree, the sexton Coruja and his dog Coisa (in
_Vingança do morto_ and _O Enterro de um Cão_), and especially some old
familiar country-house, with Dona Maria and her preserves and _receios
infernaes_, in _Amor Divino_ and _Amores, Amores_ (1897), Minho and the
Minhotos are presented with naturalness and skill. Many of these scenes
are from the short stories of _Contos_, _Novos Contos_ (1887), _A Nossa
Gente_ (1900),[688] and _A Cantadeira_ (1913),[689] some of which have
been collected in an attractive volume, _Arvoredos_ (1895).
Snr. MANUEL DA SILVA GAYO (born in 1860), poet and novelist, wrote
in _Peccado Antigo_ (1893) a short _novela_ as it calls itself,
or rather a _conto_, remarkable for its combination of colour and
restraint. It describes country scenes and customs in a style that
may not be spontaneous but is well subservient to the matter in hand,
and has a vigour, purity, and concision too often lacking in modern
Portuguese prose. Some of his early stories were collected in _A Dama
de Ribadalva_ (1904). In his later novels this style is not maintained.
We will not quarrel with its abruptness in _Ultimos Crentes_ (1904), a
remarkable story of nineteenth-century _Sebastianistas_ in a fishing
village to the extreme north of Estremadura, but it is more slovenly
in _Os Torturados_ (1911), in which a certain originality of thought
seems to have damaged the form in which it was expressed. There is a
welcome Spanish directness in the work of the able journalist Snr.
CARLOS MALHEIRO DIAS (deputy for Vianna do Castello in 1903-5) in his
novels _O Filho das Hervas_ (1900), _Os Telles de Albergaria_ (1901),
and _A Paixão de Maria do Ceo_ (1902). Frankly sensational in _O Grande
Cagliostro_ (1905), he displays his gift for the short story in _A
Vencida_ (1907), a volume of dramatic tales, of which _A Consoada_
is especially effective. Snr. JOÃO GRAVE (born in 1872) carefully
elaborates his prose in _A Eterna Mentira_ (1904) and _Jornada
Romantica_ (1913). It turns to marble in the musings of the marble faun
in _O Ultimo Fauno_ (1906), but loses this unreality in studies of the
poor in country, _Gente Pobre_ (1912), and town, _Os Famintos_ (1903),
a tragic story of a workman’s family at Oporto. More recently he has
treated historical themes with success in _Parsifal_ (1919) and _A Vida
e Paixão da Infanta_ (1921). In the historical novel Snr. FRANCISCO DE
ROCHA MARTINS has won a special place by picturesque works such as _Os
Tavoras_ (1917). He has an eye for dramatic episodes and has composed
many a living picture of the past.
ABEL BOTELHO (1856-1917), a colonel in the Army, and for some years
Minister of the Portuguese Republic at Buenos Aires, author of a volume
of verse, _Lyra Insubmissa_ (1885), showed an intermittent power of
description in seven stories of his native Beira, collected under the
title _Mulheres da Beira_ (1898). In his series of novels published
under the heading _Pathologia Social: O Barão de Lavos_ (1891), _O
Livro de Alda_ (1898), _Fatal Dilemma_ (1907), _Prospera Fortuna_
(1910), he would seem to have laboured under a misapprehension,
believing apparently that the introduction of physiology into
literature might prove him an original writer.[690] Sainte-Beuve may
speak of the _saletés splendides_ of Rabelais, a great stylist like
Signor Gabriele d’ Annunzio, except when his art fails, may redeem
if he does not justify any theme. But Abel Botelho’s style in these
wearisome novels can only be described as worthy of their matter.
They are a welter of shapeless sentences, long abstract terms, French
words, gallicisms, expressions such as _pathognomonico_, _autopsiação_,
_neuro-arthritico_, _a etiologia dos hystero-traumatismos_. This
may be magnificent pathology, but it is not art or literature. _As
Farpas_ had come to an end some years before these novels began to
appear, otherwise their defects might have been pilloried by an adept
in ridicule who in contemporary literature occupies a place apart.
As critic JOSÉ DUARTE RAMALHO ORTIGÃO (1836-1915) took his share in
the controversy of 1865, as a traveller he wrote a vivid, witty,
and charming account of Holland, with malicious side-reflections
on Portugal: _A Hollanda_ (1883). Between these two dates a series
of papers, _As Farpas_ (1871-87), originally suggested by Alphonse
Karr’s _Les Guêpes_ and begun in collaboration with his friend Eça
de Queiroz, had made him famous. His clear and pointed style was an
excellent instrument for the barbed shafts of his satire and irony and,
having discovered how powerful a weapon he possessed, he wielded it to
right purpose. With abundant good sense he ridiculed and undermined
the foibles and follies of Lisbon life, obstinately determined to
bring health to the minds and the bodies of his fellow-countrymen and
succeeding by his wit where a more sedate reformer might have failed.
The range of subjects covered was very wide--the interest of many of
them necessarily ephemeral--and his skill in brief character-sketches
is remarkable. But although Ramalho Ortigão will always be remembered
as the author of _As Farpas_ it is perhaps _A Hollanda_ that will
be read. The former work was imitated by Fialho de Almeida in _Os
Gatos_ (1889-94), which achieved popularity in Lisbon. His is a more
lumbering wit: the rapier of Ramalho Ortigão is exchanged for bludgeon
or umbrella. But _Os Gatos_, despite much that is vulgar and much
that is dull, contains some good literary criticism and successful
descriptions, of places rather than of persons. A battling critic was
MANUEL JOSÉ DA SILVA PINTO (1848-1911) in _Combates e Criticas_ (1882),
_Frente a frente_ (1909), and _Na procella_ (1909). Equally vigorous
and pure was the style of JOAQUIM DE SENNA FREITAS (1840-1913) in _Per
agoa e terra_ (1903) and _A Voz do Semeador_ (1908), as likewise that
of FRANCISCO SILVEIRA DA MOTA in _Viagens na Galliza_ (1889). The
literature of travel is not extensive. Oliveira Martins published in