Portuguese literature
character of the verse in his first volume, _Claridades do Sul_ (1875),
are accentuated in subsequent works: _A Fome de Camões_ (1880), _A
Historia de Jesus_ (1883), _O Fim de um Mundo_ (1900), _A Mulher de
Luto_ (1902). His satire here, as in _Satyras Modernas_ (1899), or
the biting sonnets of _Mefistófeles em Lisboa_ (1907), is sincerely
indignant but too often based on ignorance. In _O Anti-Christo_
(1884) it voices the eternal revolt against false civilization and
materialism. This, the most celebrated of his works, presents a strange
medley of persons, from Barabbas to Tolstoi and Huysmans, who have
this in common that they all declaim in hollow sonorous Alexandrines.
Science, saints, Hebrew prophets, Chinese philosophers, the eleven
thousand Virgins pass in a vision before the Anti-Christ and converse
with him. It is as if a Goethe without genius had written the second
part of _Faust_. But _Claridades do Sul_ contains poems in a totally
different kind, poems like _De Noute_ and _Os Lobos_, which seem to
have caught something of the pathos and simplicity of _Les Pauvres
Gens_, satire and _humorismo_ forgotten. In his descriptions of homely
scenes his verse becomes quiet, natural, and effective; after reading
the restrained and skilful _tercetos_ of _De Noute_ one is inclined to
wonder whether the secret of his comparative failure is that here was
an excellent Dutch genre-painter striving to be a high-flown Velazquez.
But certainly he has no lack of talent, imagination, and power of
expression in resonant verse.
The cult of _saudade_ has been deliberately revived by a group of poets
in the north who have founded the school of _Saudosismo_, and in their
monthly _A Aguia_ and the _Renascença_ press seek to foster all that
is native in Portuguese literature. Their creed is a vague pantheism,
their poetry is often equally vague and lacking in individuality,
but they have the advantage of being remote from Lisbon and of not
concerning themselves with foreign schools, and can therefore be
natural and Portuguese. At the head of these poets Snr. JOAQUIM
TEIXEIRA DE PASCOAES (born in 1877) sings musically in an enchanted
land of mists and shadows of pantheism, _saudade_, and his native
Tras-os-Montes. Merging itself entirely in Nature, his poetry becomes
a wavering symphony[696] woven of night and silence. The vagueness
present in the lyrics of _Sempre_ (1897), _Terra prohibida_ (1899),
_Jesus e Pan_ (1903), _Vida Etherea_ (1906), _As Sombras_ (1907), is
more marked in his longer poems _Marános_ (1911), in eighteen cantos,
and _Regresso ao Paraiso_ (1912), in twenty-two cantos of monotonous
blank verse. But Nature is justified of her child, and _Marános_, like
a mountain-stream threading its transparent pools, shows abundantly
that the author has also the power of condensing a picture into a
single line. To this group belong Snr. MARIO BEIRÃO (born in 1891),
whose verse in _O Ultimo Lusiada_ (1913) and _Ausente_ (1915) is strong
and concrete; Snr. AFONSO DUARTE (born in 1896), Snr. AUGUSTO CASIMIRO,
author of _Para a Vida_ (1906), _A Victoria do Homem_ (1910), and _A
Evocação da Vida_ (1912), and other young writers of promise.
Few if any of the younger poets have found in Portugal so ready a
reception for their work as ANTONIO NOBRE (1867-1900), whether this
be due to the all-pervading melancholy, _saudades de tudo_, to the
metrical skill, or to the haunting intensity of his verse. In a series
of poems written between 1884 and 1894 he combined the dreams of a
student at Coimbra, _a lendaria Coimbra_, the home-sickness of a
Portuguese in Paris, and a real sympathy for the poor and miserable.
In these poems of suffering and disillusion, published under the title
_Só_ (1892), a strange alternation of ingenuousness and satanism,
fantastic visions and serene simplicity, genuine poetry and sheer
prose, refrains of rustic gaiety and of morbid sentiment, produces
a certain measure of originality. He can fit his pliant metres to
his will, mould them like wax, and if the book contains no perfect
poems this is partly due to a deliberate intention to reflect his own
incoherent moods and to an evident pleasure in incongruous effects. A
second volume, of poems written between 1895 and 1899, _Despedidas_
(1902), appeared posthumously.
The permanent Secretary of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Colonel
CRISTOVAM AYRES (born in 1853), has won distinction in many fields.
Well known as an historian of the army (_Historia Organica e Politica
do Exercito Portuguez_, 8 vols., 1896-1908) and as a critic, he has
also written short stories and volumes of verse which have placed
him in the front rank of the living Parnassian poets of Portugal. In
_Indianas_ (1878), _Intimas_ (1884), _Anoitecer_ (1914), and _Cinzas
ao Vento_ (1921), he displays great technical skill, especially
in the reproduction of still scenes as in the sonnets _Paizagem_,
_Aguarella_, or _Ao luar_. The Parnassian verse of JOAQUIM DE ARAUJO
(1858-1917) in _Lyra Intima_ (1881), _Occidentaes_ (1888), and _Flores
da Noite_ (1894) has a narcotic spell, a slow lulling music. And there
is real opium in the pliant melodies of ANTONIO FEIJÓ (1862-1917),
during sixteen years Portuguese Minister at Stockholm, in _Lyricas e
Bucolicas_ (1884) and _Ilha dos Amores_ (1897). The words are heavy
with sleep like cistus flowers: _Astros das noites limpidas velae-vos_
or _A neve cae na terra lentamente_ (_les lourds flocons des neigeuses
années_). This perfection of metre is seen at its highest in his
_Cancioneiro Chinez_ (1890), translations from the French _Livre de
Jade_ (1867), itself a translation by Judith Gautier from various
Chinese poets. The poems of JOÃO DINIZ, in _Aquarellas_ (1889); MANUEL
DUARTE DE ALMEIDA (1844-1914), in _Estancias ao Infante Henrique_
(1889), _Ramo de Lilazes_ (1887), and _Terra e Azul_; Snr. Manuel da
Silva Gayo, in _Novos Poemas_ (1906); Snr. Julio Brandão, in _Saudades_
(1893), in which he weaves the _linho luarento das saudades_, _O
Jardim da Morte_ (1898) and _Nuvem de Oiro_ (1912); Snr. FAUSTO GUEDES
TEIXEIRA (born in 1872), in his remarkable _O Meu Livro, 1896-1906_
(1908); Snr. LUIZ OSORIO, in _Neblinas_ (1884), _Poemas Portuguezes_
(1890), and _Alma lyrica_ (1891); Snr. GUILHERME DE SANTA RITA in
_Vacillantes_ (1884) and _O Poema de um Morto_ (1897), and indeed of a
great _caterva vatum_,[697] belong to this school. The chiselling of
faultless sonnets has become a mannerism, but the critic who recalls
the vague and often slipshod diffuseness of earlier romantic poems
pauses before condemning. Perhaps it may be possible in time to combine
the cunning artifice of the verse-cutter with thought and a breath of
life and Nature.
The CONDE DE MONSARAZ (1852-1913) wrote some pleasant regional
verse in _Musa Alemtejana_ (1908), in which he describes life in the
_charnecas_ (moors) and _herdades_ (estates) of Alentejo: the sound of
the well-wheel among orange-trees, the ringing of _trindades_, the long
lines of women hoeing, the old herdsman singing melancholy _fados_,
the smoking _açorda_ of the workmen’s meals, the storks fleeing from
the July heat, the processions to pray for rain. The same out-of-door
air and fullness of treatment pervade the work of Snr. AUGUSTO GIL,
with a more popular strain, in _Musa Cerula_ (1894), _Versos_ (1901),
_Luar de Janeiro_ (1909), _Sombra de Juno_ (1915), _Alba Plena_ (1916),
Snr. JOSÉ COELHO DA CUNHA’S _Terra do Sol_ (1911) and _Vilancetes_
(1915),[698] and D. BRANCA DE GONTA COLLAÇO’S _Canções do Meio Dia_
(1912). A more vigorous talent, also, is that of Snr. JOÃO DE BARROS
in _Algas_ (1899), _Entre a Multidão_ (1902), _Dentro da Vida_ (1904),
_Terra Florida_ (1909), and _Anteu_ (1912). At the head of the
Portuguese Symbolists (their symbolism has been rather external than
philosophic) stands Snr. EUGENIO DE CASTRO (born in 1869). He wished,
while retaining perfection of form, to fill it with a new imagery and
colour, and that his verse in describing Nature through his sensations
should remain detached and impersonal: the poet is _uma sombra saudosa
d’outras sombras_. The success achieved in _Oaristos_ (1890) was
strikingly maintained in _Sagramor_ (1895), _O Rei Galaor_ (1897),
_Constança_ (1900), _Depois da Ceifa_ (1901), _A Sombra do Quadrante_
(1906), _O Annel de Polycrates_ (1907), _O Filho Prodigo_ (1910), and
the twenty-one sonnets of _Camafeus Romanos_ (1921). His versification
is not sufficiently varied (a defect naturally less apparent in the
shorter poems), his rare words and rhymes often have a cumbrous air,
but a real fire occasionally runs through the cold monotony of his
verse, lighting up its heavy jewels with a glow almost of life. If
it is sometimes an echo of Baudelaire, it is a Baudelaire thoroughly
acclimatized.[699] His debt was not wholly to French Parnassian or
Symbolist, for he had also drunk deep of Greek and German literature.
His originality in modern Portuguese poetry is a very real one. Yet
it is a pleasure to pass from verse often so perfect, always so
artificial, to the more natural poems of two younger writers. Snr.
ANTONIO CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA (born in 1880) in his _Auto do Fim do Dia_
(1900), _Raiz_ (1903), and _Auto de Junho_ (1904) shows a true lyrical
gift, an inspiration of the soil, of the quatrains of popular poetry:
Passou Maio taful, Maio magano,
E por onde passou nasceram rosas.
In his later works, _Alma Religiosa_ (1910), _Auto das Quatro Estações_
(1911), _Os Teus Sonetos_ (1914), _A Minha Terra_ (1916), the effect is
sometimes strained or marred by an almost morbid iteration. Snr. AFONSO
LOPES VIEIRA (born in 1878) displays a genuine talent in _O Naufrago_
(1898), _O Encoberto_ (1905), _Ar Livre_ (1906), and _O Pão e as Rosas_
(1908). _Ilhas de Bruma_ (1918) is filled with the rhythm of the sea
and with the traditions and native poetry of Portugal. There is a
certain strength as well as a subtle music about his verse which is of
good promise for the future. Whatever that future may be for Portuguese
literature, Portugal will join the more worthily in the great literary
age which will eventually spring from years of terrific upheaval if she
studies and utilizes her full heritage of prose and verse. There is
the less excuse now for its neglect since the devoted labour of many
Portuguese scholars is rendering it yearly more accessible.
FOOTNOTES:
[680] The incomplete list in the _Dicc. Bibliog._, vol. viii. records
forty-four published in 1865 and 1866. These include Julio de
Castilho’s _O Senhor Antonio Feliciano de Castilho e O Senhor Anthero
de Quental_ (1865, 2ᵃ ed., 1866), R. Ortigão’s _Litteratura d’Hoje_
(1866), Snr. Braga’s _As Theocracias Litterarias_ (1865), Quental’s
_A Dignidade das Lettras_ (1865), and C. Castello Branco’s _Vaidades
irritadas e irritantes_ (1866).
[681] The _outeiro_ (lit. ‘hill’) was an assembly of poets to _glosar
motes_. Often the gathering-place was outside a convent, from the
windows of which the nuns gave the _motes_ for the poets to gloss.
[682] Historical research and compilation are carried on by Snr.
Fortunato de Almeida in his _Historia da Igreja em Portugal_ (1910,
&c.), and by Snr. Afonso de Dornellas (_Historia e Genealogia_, 1913,
&c.). Snr. Lucio de Azevedo, well known for his studies of Pombal (_O
Marquez de Pombal e a sua epoca_, 1909) and Antonio Vieira (_Historia
de Antonio Vieira_, 2 vols., 1918, 21), is a Brazilian.
[683] For the works of these and other authors here mentioned consult
the Bibliography.
[684] It was published, with the necessary explanations, in two volumes
(1874).
[685] In this most delicate upholstery, if Wedgwood and Baedeker (as
well as Maple and Mappin) are introduced, they should surely be spelt
correctly.