Portuguese literatureBell, Aubrey F. G. (Aubrey Fitz Gerald)
History
Portuguese literature
Bell, Aubrey F. G. (Aubrey Fitz Gerald)
Portuguese literature -- History and criticism
The work of PERO DE ANDRADE CAMINHA (1520?-89), an industrious writer
of verse rather than a poet, is as cold and unmusically artificial as
Ferreira’s in its form, while it lacks Ferreira’s high thought and
ideals and his love for his native language. One may imagine that
it was through friendship with Ferreira--who scolds him for writing
in Spanish--that he became one of the set of Miranda and Bernardez.
Camões he must have known,[343] and indeed refers to him satirically
in his epigrams: he seems to have actively disliked so wayward a
genius, a man so unfitted to be a Court official. Caminha himself
was the son of João Caminha, Chamberlain of the Duchess Isabel of
Braganza, and of Philippa de Sousa of Oporto, where (or at Lisbon)
the poet may have been born. After studying at the University, either
at Lisbon, or after its transference to Coimbra in 1537, he entered
the household of the Infante Duarte. In 1576 the poet retired to the
palace of the Braganzas at Villa Viçosa and died there thirteen years
later. During the last ten years of his life he held a _tença_ of two
hundred milreis besides other sources of income (he was Alcaide Môr of
Celorico de Basto, as his father had been of Villa Viçosa), so that his
lot compares handsomely with that of Camões. He had planned an edition
of his works in nine books, but only a few occasional poems were
published during his lifetime. He wrote short poems in all the usual
kinds, but, although trusted and honoured by the princes he served, he
entirely lacked Camões’ divine _furia_ and had no compensating sympathy
or insight or lyrical charm. What would not Camões have made of his
chanty, _cantiga para çalamear_![344]
In perfect contrast to the laboured verses of Andrade Caminha is the
spontaneous flow of the lines to the river Leça beginning _Ó rio
Leça_, by which the Conde de Mattosinhos, FRANCISCO DE SÁ DE MENESES
(1515?-84), is chiefly remembered. They place him at once among the
principal poets of the century. He succeeded the Conde de Vimioso as
Camareiro Môr of Prince João, held the same post in the first years
of King Sebastian’s reign, and subsequently under King Henrique, who
created him Count of Mattosinhos in return for his services as Governor
of Portugal (during the absence of King Sebastian) and on other
occasions. After the death of the Portuguese king he retired to Oporto,
and no doubt spent the remaining summers at Mattosinhos near the gentle
stream which he had immortalized.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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