Portuguese Literature

The Jesuit Antonio Vieira (q.v.), missionary, diplomat and voluminous writer, repeated the triumphs he had gained in Bahia and Lisbon in Rome, which proclaimed him the prince of Catholic orators. Vieira was a man of action, while the oratorian Manuel Bemardes lived as a recluse, hence his sermons and devotional works, especially Luz e Calor and the Nova Floresta, breathe a calm and sweetness alien to the other, while they are even richer treasures of pure Portuguese. Perhaps the most human documents of the century are the five epistles written by Mariana Alcoforado (q.v.), known to history as the Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Padre Ferreira de Almeida's translation of the Bible has consid erable linguistic importance, and philological studies had an able exponent in Amaro de Roboredo.

The popular theatre lived on in the Comedias de Cordel, mostly anonymous and never printed; the popular autos that have sur vived are mainly religious, and show the abuse of metaphor and the conceits which derive from Gongora. All through this century Portuguese dramatists, who aspired to be heard, wrote, like Jacin tho Cordeiro and Mattos Fragoso, in Castilian, though a brilliant exception appeared in the person of D. Francisco Manuel de Mello (q.v.), whose witty Auto do fidalgo aprendiz is eminently national in language, metre, subject and treatment. The court, after 1640, preferred Italian opera, French plays and zarzuelas to dramatic performances in the vernacular, with the result that both Portuguese authors and actors of repute disappeared.

The 18th Century.

In the first part of the 18th century bad taste tended to increase, but gradually signs appeared of a literary revolution, which preceded the political and developed into the Romantic movement. Men of liberal ideas went abroad to France and England, and to their exhortation and example are largely due the reforms which were by degrees inaugurated in every branch of letters. Their names were, among others, Alexandre de Gusmao, the Cavalheiro de Oliveira, Ribeiro Sanches, Correa de Serra, Bro tero and Nascimento. They had a forerunner in Luiz Antonio Ver ney, who poured sarcasm on the prevailing methods of education in his Verdadeiro niethodo de estudar.

From time to time literary societies, variously called academies or arcadias, arose to co-operate in the work of reform. In 1720 King John V., an imitator of Louis XIV., established the academy of history. The 15 volumes of its Memorias, published from 1721 to 1756, show the excellent work done by its members, among whom were Caetano de Sousa, author of the colossal His toria da Casa Real portugueza; Barbosa Machado, compiler of the invaluable Bibliotheca Lusitana, and Soares da Silva, chronicler of the reign of King John I.

The Royal Academy of Sciences, founded in 178o by the 2nd duke of Lafoes, produced a Diccionario da lingua portugueza and the Memorias (1788-95), and included in its ranks nearly all the learned men of the last part of the i8th century. Among them were the ecclesiastical historian Frei Manoel do Cenaculo, bishop of Beja; the polygraph Ribeiro dos Santos ; Caetano do Amaral, a patient investigator of the origins of Portugal; Joao Pedro Ribeiro, the founder of modern historical studies; and the critics D. Fran cisco Alexandre Lobo, bishop of Vizeu; Cardinal Saraiva and Frei Fortunato de S. Boaventura.

The Arcadias.

In 1756 Cruz e Silva (q.v.), with the aid of friends, established the Arcadia Ulysiponense. Garcao, the most prominent Arcadian, composed the Cantata de Dido, a gem of ancient art, as well as some charming sonnets to friends and ele gant odes and epistles. The bucolic verse of Quita, a hairdresser, has a tenderness and simplicity which challenge comparison with Bernardim Ribeiro, and the iVlarilia of Gonzaga contains a cele brated collection of bucolic-erotic verse. Their conventionality sets the lyrics of Cruz e Silva on a lower plane, but in the Hys sops he improves on the Lutrin of Boileau. In 1790 a New Ar cadia came into being. Its two most distinguished members were the rival poets Bocage (q.v.) and Agostinho de Macedo (q.v.).

The only other poet of the New Arcadia who ranks high is Curvo Semedo; but the Dissidents, a name bestowed on those who stood outside the Arcadias, included two distinguished men now to be cited, the second of whom became the herald of a poetical revolu tion. No Portuguese satirist possessed such a complete equipment for his office as Nicolao Tolentino, and though a dependent posi tion depressed his muse, he painted the customs and follies of the time with almost photographic accuracy, and distributed his attacks or begged for favours in sparkling verse. The task of puri fying and enriching the language and restoring the cult of the Quinhentistas was perseveringly carried out by Francisco Manoel do Nascimento (q.v.). Shortly before his death in Paris he be came a convert to the Romantic movement, and he prepared the way for its triumph in the person of Almeida Garrett, who be longed to the Filintistas, or followers of Nascimento, in opposition to the Elmanistas, or disciples of Bocage.