JOSÉ MARIA EÇA DE QUEIRÓS

The “Cenacle”

Returning to Lisbon, Eça de Queirós joined the informal group of Lisbon intellectuals named “Cenacle” discussing about politics, arts, society and science.

It was at this time that the group invented a character together, called a “satanic poet,” named Carlos Fradique Mendes, and who produced a book called “Macadame Poems” that was even published. Eça de Queiroz liked the character so much that he used it for another creation, called “Fradique Mendes's Correspondence”, which served to denigrate bourgeois and well-behaved morals.

On 18th May 1871 the signatures of these young writers, including Eça de Queirós, appeared in the newspaper “The Revolution of September”, signing a manifesto intended to “reflect on the political and social changes that the world was undergoing, to investigate society as it is and should be, to study all the new ideas of the century and all the currents of the century. ”

These young writers refused to keep Portugal from ignoring the new ideas circulating in Europe and thus aimed at a social, moral and political transformation of the peoples and intended to link Portugal to the modern movement, as well as to stir public opinion with the great questions of philosophy, modern science and study the conditions of political transformation, economic and religious background of the Portuguese society.

The manifesto was also about the dissemination of a series of lectures called “Casino Lisbonense Democratic Conferences” but simply known as “Casino Conferences”, which defined the group of writers of this “Generation of 70”.

A warning from the authorities outlawed them all of a sudden. State authorities claimed that they attacked state religion and institutions, since they conveyed ideas that were considered dangerous in the eyes of the high ranks of society.

Faced with prohibition and censorship, Eça's response came in partnership with another young Upper Room writer, his friend Ramalho Ortigão. Together they began a series of monthly publications which they called "The Barbs" in 1871. Published in the "Diário de Notícias", they satirized with humor not only political, but also economic, cultural, social and even moral aspects; the religion and the Catholic faith; the social role of women; romantic, false and hypocritical literature.

“The Barbs” thus became a new and innovative concept of journalism - the journalism of ideas, social and cultural criticism that today is a journalistic panel of late nineteenth-century Portuguese society.

It was also with Ramalho Ortigão's partnership that Eça wrote “The Mystery of the Sintra Road”, published in the “Diário de Notícias”, in the form of weekly leaflets that resembled real anonymous letters and aroused public enthusiasm.

However, at the end of the year 1871, the imposition and responsibility of the position his father had urged him to take on forced Eça de Queirós to move permanently to Leiria and to leave Lisbon at the age of 27.

Literature and social reality

The seemingly quiet city had a great impact on Eça's life as it was there that Eça gathered material to write his most controversial work and one of his most popular ones: "The Crime of Father Amaro", published in 1875.

It can be said that it was there, when dealing with social reality, that Eça gained the ability to know how to combine the idea of ​​naturalistic-realistic literature, with everyday characters and not just archetypes, which let him stand out among other realistic writers.

In 1873, by choice and family influence, Eça resigned as Administrator of the Municipality of Leiria and entered the diplomatic career assuming the position of Consul of Portugal in Havana, Cuba.

The detachment from the Portuguese milieu did not prevent him from collaborating in national newspapers, as he had always done so far, with chronicles and short stories, but he made the decision to stop collaborating with the “Barbs” since it could not keep up with Portuguese daily social events. Therefore, Eça decided to draw his attention to the Cuban society.

A few years later he was transferred to England, first to the Newcastle Consulate and then to the Bristol Consulate. The years between 1874 and 1878 were the most productive ones in his literary career, when he wrote some of his most important works, such as "The Capital".

During these years, he continued his journalistic activity, occasionally publishing in the “Diário de Notícias”, in Lisbon, the “Letters of England” section.

Return to Portugal

At the end of 1885 Eça became seriously ill and in order to recover, he returned to Portugal indefinitely. It is during this period that he established a love relationship with D. Maria Emília de Castro. They got married the following year in a very private ceremony because Eça was then forty and she was only twenty-nine. This relationship resulted in four children (Alberto, Antonio, José Maria and Maria).

In 1888 he moved to Paris with his wife. It was also in that same year that the novel “Os Maias”, considered as his masterpiece, was published.

In 1887, some of the former young Portuguese writers who formed the "Generation of 70" decided to meet periodically at Café Tavares, Hotel Bragança or the homes of its members. Eça joined this group whenever he came to Portugal.

The group assumed the character of an exclusive society, bringing together the majority of writers, intellectuals and politicians who had tried to transform the country culturally and socially. They called themselves the “Losers of Life,” a denomination that clearly stems from the group members' renunciation of their aspirations of youth.

This feeling of disillusionment is most pertinently felt at the end of the work "Os Maias", which at bottom is almost a reflection, more than any work of Eça, of his own life; what he knew and defended as a young man, and the realization that he was after all a "Loser of Life."

The later novels, “The Illustrious House of Ramires” and “The City and the Mountains”, move away from the realism and criticism of the Portuguese society at the time, and give way to some optimism about the future.

In 1889 Eça found a magazine directed from Paris, “Revista de Portugal”, which was immediately seen as a “national project”,with thoughts, criticism and adverse opinions. Eça wrote in “Revista de Portugal”, as soon as Prince D. Carlos ascended the throne: “The King emerges as the only force that still lives and operates in the country.”

However, the group's discredit caused the Revista to end its editions after 24 issues, three years after its foundation.

An uncertain and never ascertained illness led Eça to a premature death on 16 August 1900.