Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/348

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
*
294
*

PORTUGUESE LITEBATUSE. 294 PORTUGUESE LITERATURE. ■worthy events of the lives of the nionarchs of the period of eonqucst : and a number of works of a comprehensive nature seek to furnish a general history of the fatherland. Manoel de !Mello ■wrote most of his historical treatises in Spanish; his Epanaphoras de varia historia portugueza (IGGO) is in Portujaiese. Pulpit eloquence is most ably represented by the discourses and ser- mons of the Jesuit Antonio Vieira (1608-97); and Portuguese epistolary style is seen at its best in the Cartas of both Vieira and Manoel de Mello. (.5) During the period from 1700 to 1825 French Classicism ruled supreme in Portugal. Xavier de ileneses promulgated his verse transla- tion of Boileau's Art poetique and sought to ap- ply its precepts in his tedious epic, the Een- riqiieida. The Academia Keal Portugueza was founded (1721) in the hope that it would con- trol the literary destinies of the land ; but it proved to be powerless, though the coterie of poets banded together in the Arcadia be- came really influential. The Arcadians were actuated somewhat by the wholesome principle of combining the plastic and correct forms of French Classicism with elements derived from domestic models of the sixteentli century ; but in the main the native tradition was slighted. Correa Garcao and Antonio Diniz da Cruz e Silva were Arcadians who preached Horace and Boileau to their compatriots; Antonio Diniz's Hyssopc — modeled on Boileau's Liitrin — is the most noted mock-heroic in Portuguese. Dramatic production is almost wholly in accordance with French rules. To the second half of the century belong its two most eminent authors, Francisco ilanoel do Xas- cimento (17.34-1819; known in the Arcadia by the pseudon^Tn of Filinto Elysio) and ilanoel Maria Barbosa du Boccage (176-5-1805). Nas- cimento was a gifted lyric poet, with a refined and pleasing diction, which stood him in good stead also in his prose translation of Osorio's Latin history of Emanuel the Great. The poetic talent of Boccage, who founded the Nova Arcadia (in which he was styled Elmano), was even more pronounced: no Portuguese poet has surpassed him in the use of the sonnet. Both Xascimento and Boccage had followers. To Boccage's unskill- ful imitators is due a new form of culteranism, for which the master has been unjustly blamed and to which the term Elmanismo has been im- properly applied. A pretentious rival of Camoes was Jose Agostinho de Macedo (1761-18.31). who has now lost a good deal of the prestige that he once enjoyed by reason of his epic O Orientc. (6) The nineteenth century. The Peninsular War and the fierce struggle against Xapoleonic encroachments stirred patriotic feeling in Portu- gal to greater activity than had been witnessed for several centuries. As everywhere else in Europe, modern liberal thought made much head- way in the land, and as everywhere else the young exponents of modern scientific ideas came into conflict with the unprogressive government of the country. Jofio Baptista da Silva Leitao, Viscount d'Almeida-Garrett (1799-1854), re- turned from a period of expatriation spent in England and France, inilnied with the Romantic principles which he found fully established in those lands, and with the strong desire to study the past of his o'n country and to re^^ve its literary traditions. Even while still in exile he composed the noble poem Cnnifies (Paris, 1825), replete with patriotic fervor, the satirical poem Dona Branca, and the versified novel Adoxinda (London, 1S28), the last named based on Portu- guese folk tales, ilany-sided in his endeavors, Almeida-Garrett contributed etiicaciously to the creation anew of a national drama, reviving in such plays as Un auto de (HI Yieenie, alfageme de Santarem, and Philippa de Vilhena the older tradition of the theatre of Gil Vicente. His lyric achievements were less splendid than might have been expected, but, on the other hand, his success in the historical novel, which he essayed under the influence of Scott, amply compensates for this slight deficiency. Scott was already well known in Portugal, having been translated and even imitated by Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo (1810-77). who passed his exile in Eng- land. Events and pictures of the reign of Joao I. are presented to us in his Enrico and his Monge dc (inter, and some eight centuries are covered by his Lendas e mirralivas. A residuum of Ro- mantic feeling along with a more pronounced tendency toward the formal methods of the Ar- cadians may be perceived in the lyrics of Antonio Feliciano de Castilho (1800-75). His Ciumes do Bardo and his Xoite do Castello have the Roman- tic tinge; his Cartas de Echo a Xarciso and later volumes like the Excava^ocs pocticas and the Oiitono show stress laid rather upon Arcadian elegance and finish of outward poetical form. In recent times the drama, the historical novel, and the Ijric have been cultivated by many followers of the three leading authors mentioned, and at least a moderate degree of success has been at- tained by Augusto Rebello da Silva (historical romances, A mocidadc de Dom Joao V.. etc.), Mendes Leal, Silva Gayo, and especially Camillo Castellobranco (1825-90), who has the credit of having created the modern Portuguese novel of manners. An imwholesome sentimentalism pre- vails in the lyrics of Scares de Passos; a ro- mantic tone as well as some of the polish of Castilho's verse can be recognized in the poems of Thomaz Ribeiro. Although the Romantic doctrines are still pro- fessed by a number of Portuguese writers, a not unnatural reaction against the exaggerations of ultraromanticism has set in since 1865 and has found expression in the aims and utterances of writers of the School of Coimbra. an appellation which does not sufficiently indicate the expansion of the new movement. Under the influence of Hegelianisra and the positivist doctrines of Comte. this movement has sought to develop a strictly scientific spirit, and to apply it to the sober investigation of the mediaeval past. An encouraging sign of the success of the reform thus undertaken is the appearance of the poet Joao de Deus (Xogueira Ramos), the author of the lyrics Flores do campo (1869), Raitw de fores, and Despedidas de verao. Equally encour- aging is the energy with which scientific investi- gation and literary study have been undertaken by persons of the ability of Theophilo Braga, Goncalves Vianna, J. Leite de Vasconcellos. and Coelho. Bibliography. Vasconcellos. "Geschichte der portugiesischen Litteratiar," in Grober's Grundriss dcr romanisclien Philofogie, vol. ii. (Strassburg, 1894) : Braga. Historia da litteratura portugueza (in course of pxiblicatinn since 1870; most of the volumes were publislied at Oporto, a few at Lisbon) ; id., Curso de historia da litteratura portugueza (1886); Costa e Silva, Ensaio bio-