Main masterpieces:
- O mistério da casa de Sintra (1870)
- O Crime do Padre Amaro (final edition in 1880)
- O Primo Basílio (1878)
- O Mandarim (1880)
- A Relíquia (1887)
- Os Maias (1888)
- A Ilustre Casa de Ramires (1897)
- A Cidade e as Serras (1899)
- A Capital (posthumous edition in 1925)
- O Egipto (posthumous edition in 1926)
Historical period in literature:
Modern literature, period from Romanticism to Symbolism
The literary work
In
the work of this important figure of Portuguese literature, creator of the
modern novel, can be distinguished usually three aesthetic phases: first, the romantic
influence, which includes the texts included in Prosas Bárbaras and goes till Mistério da Estrada de Sintra; the second, pure affirmation
of Realism, which begins with participation in the Casino Conferences
and is fully revealed in the novels
O Primo Basílio and O Crime do Padre
Amaro; and third,
the overcoming of Realism-Naturalism,
reflected in the novels Os
Maias, A Ilustre Casa de Ramires
and A Cidade e as Serras.
O Primo Basílio
Through
the theme
of adultery, this work mainly focuses on
the fatal consequences of a romantic female education. Luísa, married to Jorge,
a mining engineer, had a sentimental
education and consumes
the day with the same routine. A
prolonged absence of her husband
coincides with the Basílio’s arrival, cousin and former
boyfriend of Luísa, who made fortune in Brazil and now it appears
with the charm of the sophisticated life
in Paris. Weakened by the type of education she had, the lack of contact
with Jorge and the gathering with
Leopoldina, a friend that made up for an unhappy marriage with a succession of lovers, Luísa can’t
yield to the cousin attempts and
has with him, secretly, many dates.
Meanwhile, the maid Juliana captures some letters
exchanged between the lovers and begins
blackmailing Luísa. The relationship eventually ends and Basílio leaves to Paris. The Juliana requirements will be increasing, even after the return of Jorge. Luísa begins doing the
housework, while her health gets
worse.
In
turn, Juliana,
who is seriously ill, dies,
which allow Sebastião, a family friend, to retrieve
the letters. Luísa thinks herself
saved. A chance,
however, reveals everything to Jorge, who confronts her with the fact. Luisa gets
sick and eventually dies. In the end, Basílio returns
to Lisbon, once again to show the character
of conqueror without scruples.
O Primo Basílio reflects with great subtlety and
realism the different environments
of Lisbon in that time,
habits and values of bourgeoisie. To this contributes significantly its gallery of exceptional
secondary characters, which includes the maid Juliana, Leopoldina,
Sebastião, Julião, Joana, D. Felicidade and the Counselor Acácio.
O Crime do Padre Amaro
Eca
de Queirós
theorizes about Naturalism,
defined as a new method to face the truth, and assigns to art a pedagogical
mission of social reform. In this
perspective, the work aims to denounce the social and moral evils resulting from the priesthood without calling and false religious education.
The fierce criticism to the Catholic clergy and the pernicious effects of its presence in bourgeois homes, besides the seduction process of
Amelia by Amaro;
his crime, announced in the title,
corresponds to the sacrifice of his own
son, unfolds in a
series of scenes and secondary
characters, which brings out the cynicism and lust of the canon
Dias.
A Relíquia
Its epigraph – "On the strong nakedness of
truth, the translucent mantle of
fantasy" – became famous for synthesizing the alliance between realism and imagination, naturalism and fantastic, alliance, moreover, evident in the work and confirmed in the "Introduction".
From the
central plot – the
journey of Teodorico the Holy
Land, where he brings, not a
relic that had promised to the pious aunt, but,
by mistake, the nightshirt of a lover – stands the
dream or travel on time of the protagonist that, accompanied by his learned friend Dr. Topsius, attends the hearing, trial and death of Jesus. The work that
exalts the human figure of Christ
as a paradigm of love and kindness was considered heretical by most conservative sectors,
by questioning the divinity of Christ.
While Camilo Castelo Branco resorts to sarcasm and parody
to express the vanity of the world in general, Eça makes use of irony
and satire, more subtle and delicate, as it is visible in A Relíquia, narrative of the Portuguese man of the nineteenth century, deformed by women through a
Christian education that, in addition to not prepare for the
practical realities of life, denies
him and confuses basic drives,
contaminating him with values that
he is not able to find in a world where human love is ephemeral and love divine unreliable,
and seeming to give him a bit grandiloquent
rhetoric little appropriate to this
context. The aim is, at bottom,
once again, to draw a picture of what is the great
latent character of the Eça’s work: Portugal.
Os Maias
This
is the masterpiece by Eça de Queirós and one of the most
important of all the Portuguese
narrative literature. It is worth especially
by the language and the fine
irony with which the author defines
the characters and presents the
situations. It is a realistic novel (and naturalist) where fatalism, social analysis, adventures and catastrophe typical of the passionate plot
aren’t absent.
The
work deals
with the story of a family (Maia)
throughout three generations, focusing then on the next generation and giving relief to the incestuous loves of
Carlos da Maia and Maria Eduarda. But the history
is also a pretext for the author to criticize the deteriorating
condition of the country (political and cultural) and the Lisboan upper middle class nineteenth-century, where permeates a humor (sometimes thin, sometimes satirical)
that sets the defeat and disappointment
of all the characters.
Adapted works into movies:
Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (2009)
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Cast: Ricardo Trêpa, Catarina Wallenstein, Diogo Dória, Júlia Buisel, Leonor Silveira, Rogério Samora
Watching movie trailer
O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra (2007)
Director: Jorge Paixão da Costa
Cast: Ivo Canelas, António Pedro Cerdeira, Bruna Di Tullio, Rogério Samora, José Pedro Vasconcelos, Nicolau Breyner
Watching movie trailer
Consulted sources:
Portal da Literatura Portuguesainfopédia_EçaQueirós
lithis
