Among the treatises of criticism by which it was hoped, about the middle of the eighteenth century to reform the taste of the Portuguese, some consideration is due to those written by Garçaõ, the imitator of Horace.[401] They are in the form of lectures, and were delivered in an assembly called the academy of the Portuguese Arcadians. On this account they are also entitled to rank among works of oratory. In two of these lectures, Garçaõ zealously defends the Aristotelian theory of tragedy in its application to the modern drama. He insists on obedience to the rule of not shedding blood on the stage. Accordingly he commends the French drama; and notices Addison’s Cato with approbation. His opinion, on this point, he conceives is sufficiently supported by these two remarks—1st. That to fulfil the object of tragic art it is not necessary to shed blood on the stage—and 2dly. That it is improper, because at an intellectual entertainment disgusting objects should not be presented to the eye. Garçaõ appears also to have understood in the usual way the condition of Aristotle, that tragedy should refine the passions of the spectator. He expatiates much on the moral utility of a perfect tragedy, through which the theatre might, in his opinion, be easily converted into an excellent school of morals. To this effect the opinions of the French critics Le Bossu and Dacier, are industriously cited in concert with those of Aristotle. Both lectures were given in the year 1757. The main object of a third lecture which Garçaõ delivered to the same society in the same year, is to demonstrate that the imitation of the classic poets of antiquity is one of the most essential requisites of modern poetry. He observes that the judicious and the servile imitator must not be confounded together, for that the latter is in fact merely a plagiarist. Garçaõ himself seems, however, to have been somewhat puzzled to make out this distinction; for he asserts that Camoens has in his pastoral poems imitated Virgil in the same manner as Virgil has Theocritus. A skilful imitator, he says, may excel the poet whom he imitates, as Horace has in many passages excelled Pindar. At the same time it must be allowed, that these and the following lectures of Garçaõ possess the merit of pure, natural, and dignified language; and that in several passages they display true eloquence.[402] Garçaõ, who felt a patriotic interest in the improvement of the polite literature of his country, expected that the academy of the Portuguese Arcadians would by its exertions revive the good taste of the sixteenth century. Only such a society, zealously competing for the welfare and honour of the country, can, he says, become “the Alexander who will cut this gordian knot of bad taste, the Achilles who will conquer this Troy.”[403] But it appears that he appealed to his Arcadians in vain. Their literary patriotism was of a very passive character; and the advantages which Garçaõ hoped this society would procure, were destined to be obtained through another.
PHILOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL TREATISES OF THE ACADEMICIANS JOAQUIM DE FOYOS—FRANCISCO DIAS—ANTONIO DAS NAVES, &C.
Among the literary treatises (Memorias de Litteratura) published by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Lisbon,[404] are to be found the latest contributions to Portuguese criticism and eloquence; and that society may justly boast of the well directed efforts of its members to promote the literary cultivation of the nation. At the head of these literary treatises, there appeared in the year 1792 a remarkable essay on Portuguese pastoral poetry by Joaquim de Foyos.[405] This treatise served at once to record the unconquerable predilection with which the Portuguese adhered to their pastoral poetry, and the new freedom of opinion which ventured to shew itself in opposition to the oracles of French criticism. Joaquim de Foyos asserts, that pastoral poetry must be the oldest, and consequently the most natural and original style of poetry. In the history of human nature, he observes, the shepherd’s life is in the natural course of the transition from barbarism to social cultivation. It is, he adds, precisely in this stage of the developement of human wants and energies, that the mind is particularly awakened to poetic activity: and as in pastoral life man is surrounded by the sweetest tranquillity of nature, so must pastoral poetry be the true poetry of nature. Joaquim de Foyos has indeed related consistently with his own notions, the history of mankind and poetry in a way which is well calculated to set forth the particular merits of bucolic composition: otherwise history might soon have convinced him that pastoral life has scarcely ever been the passage from the savage state to civilization: that the kind of pastoral state which favours the ground work of bucolic poetry, has only arisen under particular circumstances in a few places; and has, even there been of little advantage to poetry: that Greek poetry no more originated in Arcadia, than German in Switzerland: that the oldest Greek poetry exhibits no trace of the pastoral character: that Theocritus first devoted himself to this style of composition at the voluptuous court of the Ptolemies in Alexandria: and that its revival in the romantic age, like its birth in Alexandria, presupposes a degree of social cultivation, whence the human mind longingly reverts to a more natural existence, on which it at last bestows ideal beauties. Joaquim de Foyos judges of the French critics by more just principles. He observes, that these critics, of whom Le Bossu may be placed at the head, deduce numerous chimerical rules from what they term the morality of a poem. Dacier, he says, has also misunderstood Aristotle in wishing to render the story of a poem a sort of Æsopic fable. The ingenious and elegant Marmontel has fallen into the same error.
A philological treatise in the form of a dictionary, by Antonio Pereita do Figueiredo, on the genius of the Portuguese language, according to the Decades of Barros,[406] though not immediately connected with poetry and rhetoric, is nevertheless worthy of honourable notice, since it is calculated to direct Portuguese writers to the study of Barros, and the spirit of their mother tongue. Another treatise by the same writer, has for its object to recommend Barros as a model for Portuguese eloquence.[407]
The analysis of the poetic language and style of Saa de Miranda, Ferreira, Bernardes, Caminha and Camoens, by Francisco Dias, is more useful than most of the treatises of the same kind previously written in Portuguese.[408] The investigations of this intelligent writer are philological rather than critical; but the critical observations which he introduces are dictated by a clear judgment and just feeling. The improvements which Saa de Miranda effected in the poetic language of the Portuguese are here exhibited in their true light. Even the latinisms of Ferreira are placed in an advantageous point of view by the author. He speaks of Camoens in terms of enthusiasm; but in the encomiums which have lately been bestowed on Caminha, Dias does not concur.[409] The treatise is, upon the whole, very well written.[410]
An Essay by Antonio das Naves Pereira on the proper use of the language of the Portuguese writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, abounds in judicious critical remarks.[411] It is written expressly to condemn the gallicizing (a Francezia) of modern Portuguese. This learned philologist and critic is likewise the author of a comparative view of the language and manner of the principal Portuguese poets with particular reference to the peculiarities of each style of poetry.[412]
The want of a work which might in the strict sense of the term be called a complete theory of criticism, does not appear to have yet been felt by the Portuguese. A compendium of rhetorick by Antonio Teixeira de Magalhaens was published in the year 1782;[413] and a few years after a French art of rhetorick by Gisbert, as translated into Portuguese.[414]