Jose Maria Eca de Queiros

Life Biography of Jose Maria Eca de Queiros

Jose Maria Eca de Queiros was born in Povoa de Varzim, Portugal, November 25, 1845, son of Jose Maria Teixeira de Queiroz, magistrate, and Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eca. As his parents were not officially married, the little Eca was recorded as the son of "mother unknown."
He spent his childhood in the countryside, away from parents who would only marry when he had completed four years. In fact, he spent most of life as illegitimate because it was recognized only at age 40. Until 1851 he was created by a nurse, after being delivered into the care of grandparents. In 1861 he enrolled in Coimbra, in the course of law, which concluded in 1866. It was there that he became friends with Antero de Quental and Teofilo Braga, letters and political revolutionaries of Portuguese s. At the university, was an unremarkable student, not involved in the controversy known as Question Coimbra (1865-1866), who opposed the young students to the best-known representatives of the second Romantic generation. But the lived environment of renewal found in Coimbra, where the recent rail link with France facilitated the arrival of new political and artistic of the rest of Europe.
After graduation, Eca has established itself as a lawyer in Lisbon, but quickly gave up his career. In 1867 he founded and wrote entirely for about half a year, the newspaper The District of Évora , with which the government made ​​the political opposition. Months later, he began to collaborate with greater regularity in the Gazeta de Portugal . The texts of the time, later published under the title prose Barbarian , still reflect great romantic influence.

In 1869, as a journalist, he traveled to Egypt and Palestine and attended the inauguration of the Suez Canal. It was accompanied by the Count of Resende, with whose sister, Emilia de Castro Pamplona, ​​would marry in 1886. The impressions of the trip were recorded in the texts of the book Egypt and also provided subsidies for the novel The Relic . Also in 1869, in partnership with Antero de Quental and Batalha Reis, created the figure of Carlos Fradique Mendes, who later would become a kind of alter ego. GENERATION 70 In 1870 he was appointed administrator of the board of Leiria. The stay provided the material to create the environment in which provincial and devout goes the action of The Crime of Father Amaro . In the same year, wrote to Ramalho Ortigão, a number of serials received the name of The Mystery of Sintra Road . The collaboration between the two continued the following year, with publication of a political and social criticism: The barbs .

Back in Lisbon, graduated with Antero de Quental and other youth group of the Upper Room, which started the idea of ​​the Democratic Conference Lisbonense Casino in 1871. Eca gave himself one of the lectures on the new realism as artistic expression.These intellectuals were inspired by movements in the transformation of the time as the Paris Commune, seeking to upgrade Portugal, backward and agrarian, with what happened in other European countries. The group became known as Generation 70.

Eca then joined the diplomatic service and was appointed consul in Havana (the capital of Cuba, then a Spanish colony) in 1872.During this period, made ​​a long journey by the United States and Canada, and wrote the first version of The Crime of Father Amaro .

In December 1874 he was transferred to Newcastle in England, where he wrote Cousin Basil . In 1878 he went to Bristol. Ten years later he moved to Paris, where he remained until his death in August 16, 1900.

SOCIAL CRITICISM

In 1877, Eca has prepared a series of novels with which would make a critical analysis of society Portuguese of his time with the generic Scenes Portuguese s . Even without complying strictly with the project itself, many works written by the author until the end of life born of motivation. His first novel, The Crime of Father Amaro and Cousin Basilio , are marked by naturalism, which emphasizes the social determinism to explain the trajectory of the characters. From The Maya (1888), his works move away from naturalistic aesthetics. The narrator becomes more complex than in the earlier books, because, instead of simply reporting the facts and thoughts in an objective manner, penetrates the consciousness of the characters. This is innovative by the standards of realism of the time. The latest works of Eca as The Illustrious House of Ramires and The City and the Mountains , an express disenchantment with the modern world and a desire to return to origins. His production more critical of Portugal is of the 1870s and 1880s. Considered one of the greatest Portuguese writers of all time, Eca lived more than half of life outside the home country and never stop thinking about it.


ROMANCES

The Crime of Father Amaro (1875 - final version 1880); Cousin Basil (1878), Mandarin (1880), The Relic ( 1887) The Maya (1888), A Campaign Alegre (1890-1891), The Illustrious House of Ramires (1900), The Correspondence of Fradique Mendes (1900 ).posthumous The City and the Mountains (1901), Tales (1902); prose Barbarian (1903), Letters from England (1905), Echoes of Paris(1905); Family Letters (1907); tickets Paris (1907); Notes Contemporary (1909); Latest Pages (1912), Capital (1925), The Count of Abranhos (1925), Alves and Cia . (1925), Correspondence (1925), Egypt (1926), Unpublished Letters of Fradique Mendes (1929);Pages Forgotten (1929), Eca de Queiros between Her - Intimate Letters (1949), Loose Leaf (1966), The Tragedy of the Rua das Flores, Dictionary of Miracles and Legends of the Saints (1980). CRITICAL ISSUES The Capital (1992), Mandarin (1993), Alves and Cia. (1994), Media Texts VI (1995).