Antero de Quental
Encyclopedia
Antero Tarquínio de Quental (ɐ̃ˈtɛɾu dɨ kẽˈtaɫ), old spelling Anthero, (18 April 1842 – 11 September 1891), a Portuguese
poet
, philosopher and writer, whose works became a milestone in the Portuguese language
, alongside those of Camões or Bocage
.
on the island of São Miguel
, in the Azores
, into one of the oldest families of the provincial captaincy system. Antero was baptized on 2 May 1842 (few days after his birth), much to the rejoicing of his mother. His parents, Fernando de Quental (Solar do Ramalho; 10 May 1814 – São Miguel Island
, Ponta Delgada
, Matriz; 7 March 1873), a veteran from Portuguese Liberal Wars
who took part in the Landing of Mindelo and, in his liberal enthusiasm and wife Ana Guilhermina da Maia (Setúbal
, 16 July 1811 – Lisbon
28 November 1876), a devout Roman Catholic. He was also a relative of Frei Bartolomeu de Quental, founder of the Congregation of the Oratory in Portugal.
He began to write poetry at an early age, chiefly, though not entirely, devoting himself to the sonnet
. He took French lessons under António Feliciano de Castilho
, a leading figure of Portuguese Romantic movement
, who resided in Ponta Delgada at the time. Antero was seven when he enrolled in Liçeu Açoriano (a private school), where he received English lessons from a Mr. Rendall, a renowned prospector on the island. In August 1852, he moved with his mother to the Portuguese capital
, where he studied at Colégio do Pórtico, whose headmaster was his old tutor Castilho. But the institution closed its doors, and Antero returned to Ponta Delgada in 1853. On writing to his old headmaster, he would say:
Throughout the latter part of his life Quental would dedicate his studies to poetry, politics and philosophy. By 1855, at the age of 16, he had returned to Lisbon, then to Coimbra
where he graduates from the Colégio de São Bento in 1857.
He soon distinguished himself for his oral and written talents, as well as turbulent and eccentric nature. While in Coimbra, he founded the Sociedade do Raio, which pretended to promote literature to the masses, but which launched blasphemous challenges to religion.
In 1861, he published his first sonnets. Four years later, he published Odes Modernas, influenced by the Socialist Experimentalism
of Proudhon, who championed an intellectual revolution. During that year a conflict (which would later be known as Questão Coimbrã) would develop between the traditionalist poets, championed by António Feliciano de Castilho
(at that time the chief living poet of the elder generation), and a group of students (which included Antero Quintal, Teófilo Braga
, Viera de Castro, Ramalho Ortigão
, Guerra Junqueiro
, Eça de Queiros, Oliveira Martins
, Jaime Batalha Reis and Guilherme de Azevedo, among others). The contact with the nation's cultural and literary elite, the liberal and progressives in academia, did not identify with the aesthetic formalism in the literature of the day. Accusing this modernist group of poetic exhibitionism, obscurity, and generally a lack of good sense and taste, Castilho attacked the modernist poets for instigating the intellectual revolution. In response, Antero published Bom Senso e Bom Gosto, A Dignidade das Letras and Literaturas Oficiais in which he defended their independence, pointing to the mission of poets in an era of great transformation, the necessity of being the messengers of the great ideological questions of the day, and included the ridiculousness and insignificance of Castilho's style of poetry under the circumstances. This gave rise to the 1865 controversy known as the "Coimbra Question", and his groups reference as the 70s Generation which opposed the ultra-romantic group of António Feliciano de Castilho.
He then traveled, engaged in political and socialist agitation, and found his way through a series of disappointments to the mild pessimism. Strangely, it animated his latest poetry. In 1866 he went to live in Lisbon, experimented with proletarianism, worked as a typographer (at the National Press), a job that he also continued in Paris (where he went to support French workers), between January and February 1867.
He briefly went to the United States, but returned to Lisbon in 1868, where he formed Cenáculo, along with Eça de Queirós, Guerra Junqueiro
and Ramalho Ortigão
; a intellectual group of anarchists against many of the political, social and intellectual conventions of the day.
Paradoxically, he was a founder of the Partido Socialista Português (Portuguese Socialist Party). In 1869, he founded the newspaper, A República - Jornal da Democracia Portuguesa with Oliveira Martins, and in 1872, along with José Fontana, he began to edit the magazine O Pensamento Social. In the year of the Paris Commune (1871) he organized the famous Conferências do Casino (Casino Conferences
), which marked the beginning of the spread of Socialist and Anarchist ideas in Portugal, distinguishing himself as a crusader for republican ideals.
In 1873, he inherited a sizable amount of money, which allowed him to live reasonably. Owing to tuberculosis in the following year, he rested, but returned to re-edit his Odes Modernas. He moved to Oporto in 1879, and in 1886 he published his best poetic work, Sonetos Completos, which included many passages considered autobiographical and symbolistic.
In 1880, he adopted the two daughters of his friend, Germano Meireles, who died in 1877. During a trip to Paris he became seriously ill, and in September 1881, under counsel from his medic, he began residing in Vila do Conde, where he remained until May 1891 (with a few intervals in the Azores
and Lisbon
). His time in Vila do Conde was considered by the author the best of his life. To Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcelos, a friend, he wrote of his need to end his poetry and begin a philosophical phase in his writing, to develop and synthesize his philosophy, adding:
In 1886, his Sonetos Completos, collected and prefaced by Oliveira Martins
, were published. Between March and October 1887 he returned to the Azores, then back to Vila do Conde. The Spaniard, Miguel de Unamuno
, considered them "one of the greatest examples of universal poetry, which will live as long as people have memories."
In reaction to the English Ultimatum, on 11 January 1890, he agreed to preside over the minor Liga Patriótica do Norte (Northern Patriotic League), although his involvement was ephemeral. When he eventually returned to Lisbon, he stayed at the home of his sister, Ana de Quental.
Throughout his life Antero had oscillated between pessimism and depression; afflicted with what have been Bipolar Disorder
, at the time of his last trip to Lisbon he was in a state of permanent depression, which was also accentuated by spinal disease. After one month in Lisbon, around June 1891, he returned once more to Ponta Delgada, eventually committing suicide on 11 September 1891, with two gunshots through the mouth, taken on the bunk of a local garden park: "Of all things, the worst is having been born", he wrote in a poem.
. His principal defect is monotony: his own self is his solitary theme, and he seldom attempts any other form of composition than the sonnet. On the other hand, few poets who have chiefly devoted themselves to this form have produced so large a proportion of really exquisite work. The comparatively few pieces in which be either forgets his doubts and inward conflicts, or succeeds in giving them an objective form, are among the most beautiful in any literature. The purely introspective sonnets are less attractive, but equally finely wrought, interesting as psychological studies, and impressive from their sincerity. His mental attitude is well described by himself as the effect of Germanism on the unprepared mind of a Southerner. He had learned much, and half-learned more, which he was unable to assimilate, and his mind became a chaos of conflicting ideas, settling down into a condition of gloomy negation, save for the one conviction of the vanity of existence, which ultimately destroyed him. A healthy participation in public affairs might have saved him, but he seemed incapable of entering upon any course that did not lead to delusion and disappointment.
As a prose writer Quental displayed high talents, though he wrote little. His most important prose is the Considerações sobre a philosophia da historia literaria Portugueza, but he earned fame by his pamphlets on the Coimbra question, Bom senso e bom gosto, a letter to Castilho, and A dignidade das lettras e litteraturas officiaes.
His friend Oliveira Martins
edited the Sonnets (Oporto, 1886), supplying an introductory essay; and an interesting collection of studies on the poet by the leading Portuguese writers appeared in a volume entitled Anthero de Quental. In Memoriam (Oporto, 1896). The sonnets have been translated into many languages; into English by Edgar Prestage (Anthero de Quental, Sixty-four Sonnets, London, 1894), together with a striking autobiographical letter addressed by Quental to his German translator, Dr. Storck.
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, philosopher and writer, whose works became a milestone in the Portuguese language
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, alongside those of Camões or Bocage
Bocage
Bocage is a Norman word which has entered both the French and English languages. It may refer to a small forest, a decorative element of leaves, a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, or a type of rubble-work, comparable with the English use of 'rustic' in relation to garden...
.
Early Life and childhood
He was born in Ponta DelgadaPonta Delgada
Ponta Delgada is a city and municipality on the island of São Miguel in the archipelago of the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal. It includes 44,403 residents in the urban area, and approximately 20,113 inhabitants in the three central parishes that comprise the historical city: São Pedro,...
on the island of São Miguel
São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island , nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. The island covers and has around 140,000 inhabitants, 45,000 of these people located in the largest city in the archipelago: Ponta Delgada.-History:In 1427, São Miguel...
, in the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
, into one of the oldest families of the provincial captaincy system. Antero was baptized on 2 May 1842 (few days after his birth), much to the rejoicing of his mother. His parents, Fernando de Quental (Solar do Ramalho; 10 May 1814 – São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island , nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. The island covers and has around 140,000 inhabitants, 45,000 of these people located in the largest city in the archipelago: Ponta Delgada.-History:In 1427, São Miguel...
, Ponta Delgada
Ponta Delgada
Ponta Delgada is a city and municipality on the island of São Miguel in the archipelago of the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal. It includes 44,403 residents in the urban area, and approximately 20,113 inhabitants in the three central parishes that comprise the historical city: São Pedro,...
, Matriz; 7 March 1873), a veteran from Portuguese Liberal Wars
Liberal Wars
The Liberal Wars, also known as the Portuguese Civil War, the War of the Two Brothers, or Miguelite War, was a war between progressive constitutionalists and authoritarian absolutists in Portugal over royal succession that lasted from 1828 to 1834...
who took part in the Landing of Mindelo and, in his liberal enthusiasm and wife Ana Guilhermina da Maia (Setúbal
Setúbal
Setúbal is the main city in Setúbal Municipality in Portugal with a total area of 172.0 km² and a total population of 118,696 inhabitants in the municipality. The city proper has 89,303 inhabitants....
, 16 July 1811 – Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
28 November 1876), a devout Roman Catholic. He was also a relative of Frei Bartolomeu de Quental, founder of the Congregation of the Oratory in Portugal.
He began to write poetry at an early age, chiefly, though not entirely, devoting himself to the sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
. He took French lessons under António Feliciano de Castilho
Antonio Feliciano de Castilho
António Feliciano de Castilho, 1st Viscount of Castilho , Portuguese man of letters, born at Lisbon.He lost his sight at the age of six, but the devotion of his brother Augusto, and aided by a retentive memory, enabled him to go through his school and university course with success; and he acquired...
, a leading figure of Portuguese Romantic movement
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
, who resided in Ponta Delgada at the time. Antero was seven when he enrolled in Liçeu Açoriano (a private school), where he received English lessons from a Mr. Rendall, a renowned prospector on the island. In August 1852, he moved with his mother to the Portuguese capital
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, where he studied at Colégio do Pórtico, whose headmaster was his old tutor Castilho. But the institution closed its doors, and Antero returned to Ponta Delgada in 1853. On writing to his old headmaster, he would say:
- "Your excellency once put-up with me at your Colégio do Pórtico when I was still ten years old, and I confess that I owe you much for your great patience, for the little French that I have known until this day."
Throughout the latter part of his life Quental would dedicate his studies to poetry, politics and philosophy. By 1855, at the age of 16, he had returned to Lisbon, then to Coimbra
Coimbra
Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...
where he graduates from the Colégio de São Bento in 1857.
The Coimbra years
In the fall of 1856 he enrolled at the University of Coimbra, where he studied Law, manifesting his first socialist ideals.- The important fact in my life during those years, and probably the most decisive one, was the sort of intellectual and moral revolution that took place within myself, as I left a poor child, pulled away from an almost patriarchal living of a remote province immersed in its placid historical slumber, towards the middle of the irrespective intellectual agitation of a urban center, where the newly found currents of the modern spirit would come more or less to repercute. As all my Catholic and traditional upbringing swept away instantly, I fell into a state of doubt and uncertainty, as ever the more pungent as I, a naturally religious spirit, had been born to believe placidly and obey without effort to an unknown rule. I found myself without direction, a terrible state of mind, shared more or less by all those of my generation, the first one in Portugal to ever leave the old road of tradition with decision and awareness. If to this I add a burning imagination, with which Nature had blessed me in excess, the awakening of the loving passions known to early manhood, turbulence and petulance, the enthusiasms and discouragements of a meridional temperament, a lot of good faith and good will but a severe lack of patience and method, and the portrait of my qualities and defects with which I, at 18 years old, penetrated in the vast world of thought and poetry, shall be drawn.
He soon distinguished himself for his oral and written talents, as well as turbulent and eccentric nature. While in Coimbra, he founded the Sociedade do Raio, which pretended to promote literature to the masses, but which launched blasphemous challenges to religion.
In 1861, he published his first sonnets. Four years later, he published Odes Modernas, influenced by the Socialist Experimentalism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
of Proudhon, who championed an intellectual revolution. During that year a conflict (which would later be known as Questão Coimbrã) would develop between the traditionalist poets, championed by António Feliciano de Castilho
Antonio Feliciano de Castilho
António Feliciano de Castilho, 1st Viscount of Castilho , Portuguese man of letters, born at Lisbon.He lost his sight at the age of six, but the devotion of his brother Augusto, and aided by a retentive memory, enabled him to go through his school and university course with success; and he acquired...
(at that time the chief living poet of the elder generation), and a group of students (which included Antero Quintal, Teófilo Braga
Teófilo Braga
Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga ]] 24 February 1843 – 28 January 1924) was a Portuguese writer, playwright, politician and the leader of the Republican Provisional Government after the abdication of King Manuel II, as well as the second elected President of the First Portuguese Republic, following...
, Viera de Castro, Ramalho Ortigão
Ramalho Ortigão
José Duarte Ramalho Ortigão was a Portuguese writer of the late 19th century and early 20th century. He spent his early years with his maternal grandmother in Oporto....
, Guerra Junqueiro
Guerra Junqueiro
Abilio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro was a Portuguese, bachelor in law at the University of Coimbra, a top civil servant, member of the Portuguese House of Representatives, journalist, author, and poet. His work helped inspire the creation of the Portuguese First Republic...
, Eça de Queiros, Oliveira Martins
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins was a Portuguese politician and social scientist, son of Francisco Cândido Gonçalves Martins and wife Maria Henriqueta de Morais Gomes de Oliveira Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins (Lisbon, 30 April 1845 – Lisbon, 24 August 1894) was a Portuguese politician...
, Jaime Batalha Reis and Guilherme de Azevedo, among others). The contact with the nation's cultural and literary elite, the liberal and progressives in academia, did not identify with the aesthetic formalism in the literature of the day. Accusing this modernist group of poetic exhibitionism, obscurity, and generally a lack of good sense and taste, Castilho attacked the modernist poets for instigating the intellectual revolution. In response, Antero published Bom Senso e Bom Gosto, A Dignidade das Letras and Literaturas Oficiais in which he defended their independence, pointing to the mission of poets in an era of great transformation, the necessity of being the messengers of the great ideological questions of the day, and included the ridiculousness and insignificance of Castilho's style of poetry under the circumstances. This gave rise to the 1865 controversy known as the "Coimbra Question", and his groups reference as the 70s Generation which opposed the ultra-romantic group of António Feliciano de Castilho.
Unquiet maturity
He briefly went to the United States, but returned to Lisbon in 1868, where he formed Cenáculo, along with Eça de Queirós, Guerra Junqueiro
Guerra Junqueiro
Abilio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro was a Portuguese, bachelor in law at the University of Coimbra, a top civil servant, member of the Portuguese House of Representatives, journalist, author, and poet. His work helped inspire the creation of the Portuguese First Republic...
and Ramalho Ortigão
Ramalho Ortigão
José Duarte Ramalho Ortigão was a Portuguese writer of the late 19th century and early 20th century. He spent his early years with his maternal grandmother in Oporto....
; a intellectual group of anarchists against many of the political, social and intellectual conventions of the day.
Paradoxically, he was a founder of the Partido Socialista Português (Portuguese Socialist Party). In 1869, he founded the newspaper, A República - Jornal da Democracia Portuguesa with Oliveira Martins, and in 1872, along with José Fontana, he began to edit the magazine O Pensamento Social. In the year of the Paris Commune (1871) he organized the famous Conferências do Casino (Casino Conferences
Censorship in Portugal
Censorship has been a fundamental element of Portuguese national culture throughout the country's history. From its earliest history Portugal was subject to laws limiting freedom of expression. This was mainly due to the influence of the Church since the time of Ferdinand I, who requested that...
), which marked the beginning of the spread of Socialist and Anarchist ideas in Portugal, distinguishing himself as a crusader for republican ideals.
In 1873, he inherited a sizable amount of money, which allowed him to live reasonably. Owing to tuberculosis in the following year, he rested, but returned to re-edit his Odes Modernas. He moved to Oporto in 1879, and in 1886 he published his best poetic work, Sonetos Completos, which included many passages considered autobiographical and symbolistic.
In 1880, he adopted the two daughters of his friend, Germano Meireles, who died in 1877. During a trip to Paris he became seriously ill, and in September 1881, under counsel from his medic, he began residing in Vila do Conde, where he remained until May 1891 (with a few intervals in the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
and Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
). His time in Vila do Conde was considered by the author the best of his life. To Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcelos, a friend, he wrote of his need to end his poetry and begin a philosophical phase in his writing, to develop and synthesize his philosophy, adding:
- Here the beaches are plentiful and beautiful, and through them I travel or stretch in the sun with a voluptuousness that only the poets and the lizards that love the sun...
In 1886, his Sonetos Completos, collected and prefaced by Oliveira Martins
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins was a Portuguese politician and social scientist, son of Francisco Cândido Gonçalves Martins and wife Maria Henriqueta de Morais Gomes de Oliveira Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins (Lisbon, 30 April 1845 – Lisbon, 24 August 1894) was a Portuguese politician...
, were published. Between March and October 1887 he returned to the Azores, then back to Vila do Conde. The Spaniard, Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...
, considered them "one of the greatest examples of universal poetry, which will live as long as people have memories."
In reaction to the English Ultimatum, on 11 January 1890, he agreed to preside over the minor Liga Patriótica do Norte (Northern Patriotic League), although his involvement was ephemeral. When he eventually returned to Lisbon, he stayed at the home of his sister, Ana de Quental.
Throughout his life Antero had oscillated between pessimism and depression; afflicted with what have been Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
, at the time of his last trip to Lisbon he was in a state of permanent depression, which was also accentuated by spinal disease. After one month in Lisbon, around June 1891, he returned once more to Ponta Delgada, eventually committing suicide on 11 September 1891, with two gunshots through the mouth, taken on the bunk of a local garden park: "Of all things, the worst is having been born", he wrote in a poem.
Works
Antero stands at the head of modern Portuguese poetry after João de DeusJoão de Deus
João de Deus Ramos , better known as João de Deus, the greatest Portuguese poet of his generation, was born in Silves, São Bartolomeu de Messines, in the province of Algarve, son of Pedro José Ramos and wife Isabel Gertrudes Martins...
. His principal defect is monotony: his own self is his solitary theme, and he seldom attempts any other form of composition than the sonnet. On the other hand, few poets who have chiefly devoted themselves to this form have produced so large a proportion of really exquisite work. The comparatively few pieces in which be either forgets his doubts and inward conflicts, or succeeds in giving them an objective form, are among the most beautiful in any literature. The purely introspective sonnets are less attractive, but equally finely wrought, interesting as psychological studies, and impressive from their sincerity. His mental attitude is well described by himself as the effect of Germanism on the unprepared mind of a Southerner. He had learned much, and half-learned more, which he was unable to assimilate, and his mind became a chaos of conflicting ideas, settling down into a condition of gloomy negation, save for the one conviction of the vanity of existence, which ultimately destroyed him. A healthy participation in public affairs might have saved him, but he seemed incapable of entering upon any course that did not lead to delusion and disappointment.
As a prose writer Quental displayed high talents, though he wrote little. His most important prose is the Considerações sobre a philosophia da historia literaria Portugueza, but he earned fame by his pamphlets on the Coimbra question, Bom senso e bom gosto, a letter to Castilho, and A dignidade das lettras e litteraturas officiaes.
His friend Oliveira Martins
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins was a Portuguese politician and social scientist, son of Francisco Cândido Gonçalves Martins and wife Maria Henriqueta de Morais Gomes de Oliveira Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins (Lisbon, 30 April 1845 – Lisbon, 24 August 1894) was a Portuguese politician...
edited the Sonnets (Oporto, 1886), supplying an introductory essay; and an interesting collection of studies on the poet by the leading Portuguese writers appeared in a volume entitled Anthero de Quental. In Memoriam (Oporto, 1896). The sonnets have been translated into many languages; into English by Edgar Prestage (Anthero de Quental, Sixty-four Sonnets, London, 1894), together with a striking autobiographical letter addressed by Quental to his German translator, Dr. Storck.