Almeida Garrett

Juan Bautista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, Portuguese romantic writer and liberal politician and Freemason (Porto, February 4, 1799 – Lisbon, December 9, 1854).

Trajectory

The son of António Bernardo da Silva Garrett and Ana Augusta de Almeida Leitão, the writer spent part of his childhood in Portugal, but had to flee to the Azores (Angra do Heroísmo) when Napoleonic troops invaded Portugal. In 1818 he moved to Coimbra, where he enrolled in Law. Still in 1821 he published O retrato de Vênus , a work that cost him a trial for being considered "materialist, atheist and immoral".

He participated in the liberal revolution of 1820, and had to go into exile in 1823, after Vilafrancada. He had previously married Luísa Midosi, barely 14 years old. It was in England where he made contact with the romantic movement. He continued he moved to France, where he wrote Camões (1825) and Dona Branca (1826). In 1826 he was amnestied and returned to Portugal with the last emigrants, but he would have to leave the country again in 1828 with the return of the absolutist King Miguel I. That year he had just lost a newborn daughter. In England again, he publishes Adozinda (1828) and Catão (1828).

Almeida Garrett, together with Alexandre Herculano and Joaquim António de Aguiar, takes part in the Landing of Mindelo. Upon his return to Portugal, Garrett will be able to dedicate himself to literary activity more calmly for the rest of his days. After separating from Luisa in 1835 (who had betrayed him in Brussels), he went on to live with Adelaide Pastor until her death in 1841.

He published his famous play, Frei Luís de Sousa, in 1843 and his masterpiece, Viajes por mi tierra, in 1846. This book combines several genres and languages (classical and popular, spoken by the narrator) that refer to the sentimental journey of Laurence Sterne; The style of travelers (the one that the author made from Lisbon to Santarém) and novelistic invention are mixed in it with the characters of Carlos, Frei Dinis and Joaninha of great vitality. It is considered the starting point of modern Portuguese prose and inescapable references to it.

He died in 1854 of cancer. His statue is in the center of Porto, at the beginning of the street named after him.

Works

• 1819 - Lucrécia
• 1820 - O Roubo das Sabinas (poem written in his youth)
• 1820 - Merope (teatro)
• 1821 - Or portrait of Vênus (poesy)
• 1821 - Catão (teatro)
• 1825 - Camões (poesy)
• 1826 - Dona Branca (Poetry)
• 1828 - Adozinda (Poetry)
• 1829 - Lyrics of João Mínimo (Poesia)
• 1829 - Or treat "Da Educação"
• 1830 - Portugal na Balança da Europa
• 1838 - Um Auto de Gil Vicente (teatro) (A Auto de Gil Vicente)
• 1842 - O Alfageme de Santarém (teatro)
• 1843 - Romanceiro e Cancionero Geral, Volume 1
• 1843 - Frei Luís da Sousa (teatro)
• 1845 - Flowers sem Fruit (poesy)
• 1845 - Or Arc de Santa Ana I (fiction)
• 1846 - Falar True un Mentir (theater)
• 1846 - Viagens na Minha Terra (fiction) I
• 1846 - D. Filipa de Vilhena (teatro)
• 1848 - As prophecies do Bandarra; Um Noivado no Dafundo;
• 1848 - Um Noivado no Dafundo
• 1848 - A sobrinha do Marquês (teatro)
• 1849 - Historic Memories of José Xavier Mouzinho da Silveira
• 1850 - Or Arc de Santa Ana II (fiction)
• 1851 - Romanceiro e Cancionero Geral, volume 2 and 3
• 1853 - Folhas Falls (poesy)
• - Helena (fiction)
• 18?
• 18?
• 1871 - Biographical Discourses and Memoirs

Translations

• Fra Luís de Sousa, Council of Barcelona, 1997 ISBN 978-84-7794-508-6
• Travel through my land , Pre-Textos, 2004 ISBN 978-84-8191-575-4; and Krk, 2007, ISBN 978-84-8367-029-3