Eça de Queirós Sculpture - Portuguese Writer

"SOBRE A NUDEZ FORTE DA VERDADE O MANTO DIÁFANO DA FANTASIA"

Name : José Maria de Eça de Queirós Date of birth: 25 de novembro de 1845, Praça do Almada Date of death: 16 de agosto de 1900, Paris, França Nationality : Portuguese Education : Coimbra University

Eça de Queiroz was one of the most, if not the most, important Portuguese realism writers. Os Maias, O Crime do Padre Amaro and A Relíquia are just three of his many books. He lived during the second half of the 19th Century, and died in 1900, in Paris. In addition to being a fantastic writer, he was also a diplomat, representing Portugal in countries like Cuba or England.

The statue of Eça, situated in the Chiado area, between the Cais do Sodré and the Bairro Alto, shows the writer holding a nude woman that symbolically represents the "truth." THIS PIECE IS A BRONZE REPLICA OF THE ORIGINAL SCULPTURE THAT WAS REMOVED AFTER SEVERAL ACTS OF VANDALISM ALMOST COMPLETELY DESTROYED IT.

in Wikipedia

José Maria de Eça de Queiroz or Eça de Queirós[1] (European Portuguese: [ʒuˈzɛ mɐˈɾiɐ dɨ ˈɛsɐ dɨ kɐi̯ˈɾɔʃ]; November 25, 1845 – August 16, 1900) is generally considered to be the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style.[2] Zola considered him to be far greater than Flaubert.[3] The London Observer critics rank him with Dickens, Balzac and Tolstoy.[4] Eça never officially rejected Catholicism, and in many of his private letters he even invokes Jesus and uses expressions typical of Catholics, but was very critical of the Catholic Church of his time, and of Christianity in general (also Protestant churches) as is evident in some of his novels.

During his lifetime, the spelling was "Eça de Queiroz" and this is the form that appears on many editions of his works; the modern standard Portuguese spelling is "Eça de Queirós".

Biography

At age 16, he went to Coimbra to study law at the University of Coimbra; there he met the poet Antero de Quental. Eça's first work was a series of prose poems, published in the Gazeta de Portugal magazine, which eventually appeared in book form in a posthumous collection edited by Batalha Reis entitled Prosas Bárbaras ("Barbarous texts"). He worked as a journalist at Évora, then returned to Lisbon and, with his former school friend Ramalho Ortigão and others, created the Correspondence of the fictional adventurer Fradique Mendes. This amusing work was first published in 1900.

In 1869 and 1870, Eça de Queirós travelled to Egypt and watched the opening of the Suez Canal, which inspired several of his works, most notably O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road", 1870), written in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão, in which Fradique Mendes appears. A Relíquia ("The Relic") was also written at this period but was published only in 1887. The work was strongly influenced by Memorie di Giuda ("Memoirs of Judas") by Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, such as to lead some scholars to accuse the Portuguese writer of plagiarism.[5]

When he was later dispatched to Leiria to work as a municipal administrator, Eça de Queirós wrote his first realist novel, O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Sin of Father Amaro"), which is set in the city and first appeared in 1875.

Eça then worked in the Portuguese consular service and after two years' service at Havana was stationed at 53 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, from late 1874 until April 1879. His diplomatic duties involved the dispatch of detailed reports to the Portuguese foreign office concerning the unrest in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields - in which, as he points out, the miners earned twice as much as those in South Wales, along with free housing and a weekly supply of coal. The Newcastle years were among the most productive of his literary career. He published the second version of O Crime de Padre Amaro in 1876 and another celebrated novel, O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Bazilio") in 1878, as well as working on a number of other projects. These included the first of his "Cartas de Londres" ("Letters from London") which were printed in the Lisbon daily newspaper Diário de Notícias and afterwards appeared in book form as Cartas de Inglaterra. As early as 1878 he had at least given a name to his masterpiece Os Maias ("The Maias"), though this was largely written during his later residence in Bristol and was published only in 1888. There is a plaque to Eça in that city and another was unveiled in Grey Street, Newcastle, in 2001 by the Portuguese ambassador.

Eça, a cosmopolite widely read in English literature, was not enamoured of English society, but he was fascinated by its oddity. In Bristol he wrote: "Everything about this society is disagreeable to me - from its limited way of thinking to its indecent manner of cooking vegetables." As often happens when a writer is unhappy, the weather is endlessly bad. Nevertheless, he was rarely bored and was content to stay in England for some fifteen years. "I detest England, but this does not stop me from declaring that as a thinking nation, she is probably the foremost." It may be said that England acted as a constant stimulus and a corrective to Eça’s traditionally Portuguese Francophilia.

In 1888 he became Portuguese consul-general in Paris. He lived at Neuilly-sur-Seine and continued to write journalism (Ecos de Paris, "Echos from Paris") as well as literary criticism. He died in 1900 of either tuberculosis or, according to numerous contemporary physicians, Crohn's disease.[6] His son António Eça de Queirós would hold government office under António de Oliveira Salazar.

Bust of Eça de Queiroz in Neuilly-sur-Seine avenue Charles de Gaulle Works by Eça de Queirós[edit]

Cover of the first edition of Os Maias O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road", 1870, in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão) O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Sin of Father Amaro", 1875, revised 1876, revised 1880) A Tragédia da Rua das Flores ("The Rua das Flores (Flower's Street) Tragedy") (1877-1878) O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Bazilio", 1878) O Mandarim ("The Mandarin", 1880) As Minas de Salomão, translation of H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885) A Relíquia ("The Relic", 1887) Os Maias ("The Maias", 1888) Uma Campanha Alegre ("A Cheerful Campaign") (1890-1891) Correspondence of Fradique Mendes,1890 A Ilustre Casa de Ramires ("The Noble House of Ramires", 1900) A Cidade e as Serras ("The City and the Mountains", 1901, Posthumous) Contos ("Stories") (1902, Posthumous) Prosas Bárbaras ("Barbarous Texts", 1903, Posthumous) Cartas de Inglaterra ("Letters from England") (1905, Posthumous) Ecos de Paris ("Echos from Paris") (1905, Posthumous) Cartas Familiares e Bilhetes de Paris ("Family Letters and Notes from Paris") (1907, Posthumous) Notas Contemporâneas ("Contemporary Notes") (1909, Posthumous) Últimas páginas ("Last Pages") (1912, Posthumous) A Capital ("The Capital") (1925, Posthumous) O Conde d'Abranhos ("Count d'Abranhos") (1925, Posthumous) Alves & C.a ("Alves & Co.", published in English as "The Yellow Sofa", 1925, Posthumous) O Egipto ("Egypt", 1926, Posthumous) Periodicals to which Eça de Queirós contributed[edit] Gazeta de Portugal As Farpas ("Barbs") Diário de Notícias Translations[edit] His works have been translated into about 20 languages, including English.

Since 2002 English versions of six of his novels and a volume of short stories, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, have been published in the UK by Dedalus Books.

A capital (The Capital): translation by John Vetch, Carcanet Press (UK), 1995. A Cidade e as serras (The City and the Mountains): translation by Roy Campbell, Ohio University Press, 1968. A Ilustre Casa de Ramires (The illustrious house of Ramires): translation by Ann Stevens, Ohio University Press, 1968. A Relíquia (The Relic): translation by Aubrey F. Bell, A. A. Knopf, 1925. Also published as The Reliquary, Reinhardt, 1954. A Relíquia (The Relic): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 1994. A tragédia da rua das Flores (The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2000. Alves & Cia (Alves & Co.): translation by Robert M. Fedorchek, University Press of America, 1988. Cartas da Inglaterra (Letters from England): translation by Ann Stevens, Bodley Head, 1970. Also published as Eça's English Letters, Carcanet Press, 2000. O Crime do Padre Amaro (El crimen del Padre Amaro): Versión de Ramón del Valle - Inclan, Editorial Maucci, 1911 O Crime do Padre Amaro (The Sin of Father Amaro): translation by Nan Flanagan, St. Martins Press, 1963. Also published as The Crime of Father Amaro, Carcanet Press, 2002. O Crime do Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2002. O Mandarim (The Mandarin in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Richard Frank Goldman, Ohio University Press, 1965. Also published by Bodley Head, 1966; and Hippocrene Books, 1993. Um Poeta Lírico (A Lyric Poet in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Richard Frank Goldman, Ohio University Press, 1965. Also published by Bodley Head, 1966; and Hippocrene Books, 1993. Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (Peculiarities of a Fair-haired Girl in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Richard Frank Goldman, Ohio University Press, 1965. Also published by Bodley Head, 1966; and Hippocrene Books, 1993. José Mathias (José Mathias in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Richard Frank Goldman, Ohio University Press, 1965. Also published by Bodley Head, 1966; and Hippocrene Books, 1993. O Mandarim (The Mandarin in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Hippocrene Books, 1983. O Mandarim (The Mandarin in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2009. José Mathias (José Mathias in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2009. O Defunto (The Hanged Man in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2009. Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (Idiosyncrasies of a young blonde woman in The Mandarin and Other Stories): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2009. O Primo Basílio (Dragon's teeth): translation by Mary Jane Serrano, R. F. Fenno & Co., 1896. O Primo Basílio (Cousin Bazilio): translation by Roy Campbell, Noonday Press, 1953. O Primo Basílio (Cousin Bazilio): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2003. Suave milagre (The Sweet Miracle): translation by Edgar Prestage, David Nutt, 1905. Also published as The Fisher of Men, T. B. Mosher, 1905; The Sweetest Miracle, T. B. Mosher, 1906; The Sweet Miracle, B. H. Blakwell, 1914. Os Maias (The Maias): translation by Ann Stevens and Patricia McGowan Pinheiro, St. Martin's Press, 1965. Os Maias (The Maias): translation by Margaret Jull Costa, New Directions, 2007. O Defunto (Our Lady of the Pillar): translation by Edgar Prestage, Archibald Constable, 1906. Pacheco (Pacheco): translation by Edgar Prestage, Basil Blackwell, 1922. A Perfeição (Perfection): translation by Charles Marriott, Selwyn & Blovnt, 1923. José Mathias (José Mathias in José Mathias and A Man of Talent): translation by Luís Marques, George G. Harap & Co., 1947. Pacheco (A man of talent in José Mathias and A Man of Talent): translation by Luís Marques, George G. Harap & Co., 1947. Alves & Cia (The Yellow Sofa in Yellow Sofa and Three Portraits): translation by John Vetch, Carcanet Press, 1993. Also published by New Directions, 1996. Um Poeta Lírico (Lyric Poet in Yellow Sofa and Three Portraits): translation by John Vetch, Carcanet Press, 1993. Also published by New Directions, 1996. José Mathias (José Mathias in Yellow Sofa and Three Portraits): translation by Luís Marques, Carcanet Press, 1993. Also published by New Directions, 1996. Pacheco (A man of talent in Yellow Sofa and Three Portraits): translation by Luís Marques, Carcanet Press, 1993. Also published by New Directions, 1996.

Movie adaptations

There have been two film versions of O Crime do Padre Amaro, a Mexican one in 2002 and a Portuguese version in 2005 which was edited out of a SIC television series, released shortly after the film (the film was by then the most seen Portuguese movie ever, though very badly received by critics, but the TV series, maybe due to being a slightly longer version of the same thing seen by a big share of Portuguese population, flopped and was rather ignored by audiences and critics).

Eça's works have been also adapted on Brazilian television. In 1988 Rede Globo produced O Primo Basílio in 35 episodes. Later, in 2007, a movie adaptation of the same novel was made by director Daniel Filho. In 2001 Rede Globo produced an acclaimed adaptation of Os Maias as a television serial in 40 episodes.

A movie adaptation of O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra was produced in 2007.The director had shortly before directed a series inspired in a whodunit involving the descendants of the original novel's characters (Nome de Código Sintra, Code Name Sintra), and some of the historical flashback scenes (reporting to the book's events) of the series were used in the new movie. The movie was more centered on Eça's and Ramalho Ortigão's writing and publishing of the original serial and the controversy it created and less around the book's plot itself.

Novelist and short-story writer, one of the leading intellectuals of the 'Generation of 1870'. Eça de Queirós introduced naturalism and realism to Portuguese literature. He is considered the major novelist of his generation. The French writer Emile Zola admired him greatly and said that Eça was "greater than Flaubert".

"Happiness would arrive one day and to hasten its arrival I did everything that a good Portuguese and a constitutionalist could do: I prayed every night to Our Lady of Sorrows and bought lottery tickets, the cheapest available." (from The Mandarin, 1880)

José Maria Eça de Queirós was born in Póvoa de Varzim, a small fishing town. He was the illegitimate son of a prominent Brazilian judge, Maria de Almeida Teixeira de Queiroz. His mother and grandmother had moved to Póvoa de Varzim in order to keep the her pregnancy a secret. Formally Eça de Queirós was not acknowledged by his parents until he was in his forties. With his father's support he was able to study at the University of Coimbra. Originally Eça's name was spelled Queiroz, but after the spelling of Portuguese was standardized with an agreement with Brazil, the name is now Queiros.

Eça de Queirós was raised by his paternal grandparents, even after his father had married Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eca, who was most likely his mother. At the age of five he was sent to a boarding school in Oporto. He studied law at the University of Coimbra and after graduation his father helped him make a start in legal profession. Eça de Queirós spent most of his life in the consular service. He worked in the 1870s and 1880s in diplomatic missions in Havana and in Victorian London. At the age of forty-one, he married Emília de Resende, the sister of his friend Count Luís Resende. In the late 1880s, Eça de Queirós founded with others Revista de Portugal which appeared in 1889-92. In 1888, he was appointed consul in Paris, where he served until his death.

In 1871 Eça de Queirós started to publish with Ramalho Origão (1837-1915) a monthly journal, As Farpas, which satirized Portuguese life. During these years Eça de Queirós became closely associated with the "Generation of Coimbra". The group was committed to social and artistic reforms. After the civil war of 1828-1834, Portugal was politically and economically dependent on Great Britain and culturally dominated by France. Eça and other members of the group wanted to replace the conventional literary traditions with literature dealing with the contemporary issues."Over the railroads that had opened the peninsula," he wrote, "whole waves of new things descended upon us every day from France, and Germany by way of France: ideas, aesthetic systems, forms, sentiments, humanitarian concerns."

Eça de Queirós's work is characterized by ironic tone and social criticism. His best known novel, O Crime do Padre Amaro (1875), was based on his experiences as a municipal official in the province of Leiria. The protagonist is a priest, Father Amaro. Eça follows his life from his youth to middle age, satirizing in his character clerical corruption and the destructive effects of celibacy. The story is set in a provincial town, which is described in a harsh light: "In the row of poor dwellings at the side of the Archway, the old women sat at their doors, spinning; the dirty, ill-nourished children played on the ground, showing their nude, swollen bellies; and the hens went round voraciously picking among the dirt and filth. Round the fountain all was noise; vessels were dragged over the stones, servants abused one another, soldiers in dirty uniforms and enormous laced down-at-heel boots waved their malacca canes and made love; girls with fat-paunched pitchers on their heads walked in pairs swinging their hips; two lazy officers, with their uniforms unbuttoned and hanging loose over their stomachs, chatted together as they waited to see who might arrive."

O Primo Basilio (1878) was a Flaubertian study of a middle-class Lisbon family and focused on adultery. The novel has been praised for its female characters - the romantic and sensual Luiza, who falls in love with her cousin Bazilio; and Luiza's servant, Juliana, embittered and virginal, who scorns her. Eça doesn't condemn the cheating wife or the blackmailing servant - he shows much understanding to human weaknesses as in the character of Father Amaro. Os Maias (1880) depicted upper-class life and the degeneration of an old Beira family, the Maias, through the love affair between Carlos, the grandson of Alfonso de Maia, and Maria Eduarda, who turns out to be not the wife of a wealthy Brazilian, Castro Gomes, but his mistress. The ironic or tragic destines of the characters reflect ideological, cultural and political development in Portugal from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the mid-1880's.

In 1889-1890 the Revista de Portugal published Eça de Queirós's free translation of Henry Rider Haggard's imperial romance King Solomon's Mines under the title As Minas de Salomão. The translation appeared in book form in 1891. Perhaps for political reasons, Eça de Queiró toned down in his version Haggard's critical remarks on the Portuguese presence in Africa.

Eça de Queirós's naturalism and attacks on religious hypocrisy and defects of the elite arose much controversy, and he was called the "Portuguese Zola." Eça himself loved Balzac and Flaubet, and the France they portrayed, well aware of its fictional nature. In O Mandarim (1880) Eça de Queirós moved from naturalism toward a new aesthetic form and gave more space to the interaction between the reality and the free flight of imagination. "... rest a while from the harsh study of human reality. Let us depart instead for the fields of Dreams and wander those blue, romantic hills where stands the abandoned tower of the Supernatural, where cool mosses clothe the ruins of Idealism. Let us, in short, indulge in a little fantasy."

A Relíquia (1887) was a provicative story of religious hypocrisy and truth. Its writing coincided with his marriage and drew on the travels with his wife's brother to Egypt and the Near East. The young Teodorico Raposo is a Christian Bachelor of Law, an opportunist and an obsessed hunter of women. His wealthy Aunt Titi, whom he tries to please, is a fetish-loving Catholic. Teodorico hangs on the walls pictures of saints, "as a gallery of spiritual ancestors from whom I received a constant example in the difficult path of virtue." He is sent Jerusalem to acquire a healing relic for his aunt, but lands first on Alexandria, where he meets the German scholar Topsius, and Mary, an English whore. Aboard the Shark, bound from Aleksandria to Jaffa, he has a vision of the Ascension, the Christ, the Devil, and the furious Auntie with her prayer-book. Teodorico comforts Lucifer: "Never mind, there will be plenty of pride and dissolution and blood and fury in the world. Do not regret the holocaust of Moloch. You shall have holocaust of Jews." In the Holy Land he is transported back in time as Theodoricus, a Lusitanian, with his companion, Dr. Topsius. He sees Jesus the Nazareth before the Praetor, and witnesses the crucifixion. The still-living Jesus is smuggled from the cross into a grave, and after adventures Teodorico returns back to his own century. Jerusalem, "the shining citadel of a god", on the eve of the Passover, has become "sombre, packed with monasteries and crouched behind its crumbling walls, like a poor, flea ridden woman who crawls into a corner to die, wrapped in the ragged remnants of her cloak." Instead of the Crown of Thorns, Teodorico gives accidentally Auntie another souvenier from his voyage, Mary's night-dress. "One hails Eça de Queiroz, to give him his true name, as a master who in The Relic has done the improbable," wrote the American literature critic Harold Bloom. "He has united Voltaire and Robert Louis Stevenson in a single body, and given us a general romance that is also a superb satire, a unique literary triumph." (from Genius, 2002)