GENERAL VIEW, COIMBRA
Eça de Queiroz.
Eça de Queiroz (1846-1900), the other great Portuguese novelist of the century, is, on the contrary, almost as much French as Portuguese in style, and is probably the best known of modern Portuguese writers outside Portugal. His work contains many arresting pages, especially those which describe country or provincial life in Portugal (in O Crime do Padre Amaro, 1875; A Correspondencia de Fradique Mendes, 1891; A Illustre Casa de Ramires, 1897; A Cidade e as Serras, 1901). Life in Lisbon is described, or perhaps one should say distorted, caricatured in O Primo Basilio (1878), Os Maias (1880), and in part of A Reliquia (1887). Eça de Queiroz went from strength to strength, or rather from weakness to strength. His later work is more original and above all more Portuguese. It is in parts very striking indeed, and through all his novels runs that peculiar flavour of irony and sarcasm which prevents him from ever being merged entirely in the French realistic or naturalistic school.
Julio Diniz.
A writer of less vigorous talent was “Julio Diniz” (Joaquim Guilherme Gomes Coelho) (1839-71), whose novels, Uma Familia Inglesa (1862), As Pupillas do Sr. Reitor (1867), A Morgadinha dos Cannaviaes (1868), Os Fidalgos da Casa Morisca (1871) treat of country themes with a quiet charm and no little psychological interest. Some of his pages recall those of the Spanish novelist Fernán Caballero in their delicate observation and gentle optimism.
Living Novelists.
Of living novelists, Snr. Teixeira de Queiroz (born in 1848) also occasionally recalls Fernán Caballero in a certain naïve and delightful power of description, preferably of country scenes and peasants. His best work is contained in the short stories of his Comedia do Campo—Contos, Amor Divino, Antonio Fogueira, Novos Contos, Amores, Amores, A Nossa Gente, A Cantadeira (1913). Sr. Luiz de Magalhães, born in 1859, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in Senhor João Franco’s Ministry, wrote in 1886 a novel entitled O Brazileiro Soares, a careful study of a “Brazilian” (that is, a Portuguese returning enriched from Brazil), which placed him in the front rank of contemporary Portuguese novelists. Senhor Magalhães Lima, born in 1857, did not publish his first novel, O Transviado, till 1899. Other novels by the same author are A Paz do Senhor (1903) and O Reino da Saudade (1904). Senhor Abel Botelho, born in 1854, and appointed Minister at Buenos Aires by the Republic, has a great reputation as a novelist. His novels are professedly “pathological.” A Portuguese critic remarks that his books sometimes “cause more moral indignation than aesthetic enjoyment.”[40] Younger contemporary novelists, as contemporary poets, are very numerous.