Camilo Castelo Branco

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Camilo Castelo Branco
BornCamilo Ferreira Botelho Castelo Branco
16 March 1825
Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal
Died1 June 1890(1890-06-01) (aged 65)
São Miguel de Seide [pt], Vila Nova de Famalicão, Kingdom of Portugal
Occupationnovelist, playwright, essayist
NationalityPortuguese
GenreRomance novel
Literary movementRomanticism

Camilo Castelo Branco, 1st Viscount of Correia Botelho (Portuguese pronunciation:

dark humour. He is also celebrated for his peculiar wit
and anecdotal character, as well as for his turbulent (and ultimately tragic) life.

His writing, which is centred in the local and the picturesque and is in a general sense affiliated with the Romantic tradition, is often regarded in contrast to that of

guerrilla
– many have interpreted a synthesis of the two great tendencies present in the Portuguese literature of the 19th century.

Allegations that he was initiated in

legitimism
and as a conservative and Catholic traditionalist.

Biography

Camilo was born out of wedlock and orphaned in infancy,

Manuel Maria Barbosa de Bocage, while Fernão Mendes Pinto gave him a lust for adventure. In spite of this interest in literature, and of his remarkable abilities in Greek and Latin, Camilo was a distracted student and grew up to be undisciplined and proud.[4]

From the age of 17 to his early 20s, he intermittently studied medicine and theology in

Oporto and Lisbon he proceeded to the episcopal seminary in Oporto in order to study for the priesthood. During this period Camilo wrote a number of religious works and translated the work of François-René de Chateaubriand. Camilo actually took minor holy orders, but his restless nature drew him away from the priesthood and he devoted himself to literature for the rest of his life.[4] He was arrested twice; the first time for having unearthed[why?] the remains of his first wife (whom he had married at the age of 16, and who had died at 24) and the second due to his adulterous affair with Ana Plácido
, who was married at the time.

His first period of incarceration was short, apparently thanks to the intervention of Teixeira de Queiroz, an influential judge and, coincidentally, father of the renowned

Oporto
, intertwined with intimate ramblings of the imagination and biographical fragments.

Camilo was made a viscount (Visconde de Correia Botelho) in 1885 in recognition of his contributions to literature, and when his health deteriorated and he could no longer write, parliament gave him a pension for life.[4] In 1886, he wrote "Esboço de crítica: Otelo, o Mouro de Veneza".[5][6] Going blind (because of syphilis) and suffering from chronic nervous disease, Castelo Branco committed suicide[7] with a revolver in 1890, while sitting in his now-famous wooden rocking chair.[citation needed]

Works

Camilo Castelo Branco is probably the most prolific of all Portuguese writers, his work including novels, plays, verse, and essays. In addition, Camilo was the first Portuguese writer able to support himself financially from his writing alone. In all, his publications number about five hundred and sixty, but he is best known for his novels. Even though Camilo churned out a lot of work to pay the bills, he never lost his individuality. His familiarity with personalities allowed him to enliven his writing with a succession of memorable characters and Portuguese types, such as the "brasileiro" (a returned Portuguese emigrant who had made his fortune in Brazil), the old "Fidalgo" (nobleman) of the north of Portugal, and the Minho priest.

Camilo's novels may be divided into three periods. The first period comprises his romances of the imagination, of which Os Mistérios de Lisboa, in the style of Eugène Sue, is a fair example.[4]

The second period includes his

novels of manners, a style he developed and remained the chief exponent of until the appearance of O Crime de Padre Amaro by Eça de Queiroz. In these novels he combines realism and idealism, and perfectly captures the domestic and social life of Portugal in the early part of the 19th century.[4]

The third period embraces his writings in the realms of history, biography and literary criticism. Among these may be cited Noites de Lamego, Cousas leves e pesadas, Cavar em ruínas, Memórias do Bispo do Grão Pará and Boémia do Espírito.[4]

Among the most notable of his romances are O Romance de um Homem Rico, his favorite, Retrato de Ricardina, Amor de Perdição, the collection of novellas Novelas do Minho and A Brasileira de Prazins. Many of his novels are autobiographical, like Onde está a felicidade?, Memórias do Cárcere and Vingança. Castelo Branco is an admirable story-teller, largely because he was a brilliant improvisatore, but he does not attempt character study. He has a richness of vocabulary probably unmatched in all Portuguese literature, often using obscure words. At the same time, few Portuguese authors have demonstrated so profound a knowledge of the vernacular tongue. Though nature had endowed Camilo with a poetic temperament, his verses are considered to be mediocre, while his best plays are cast in bold lines and contain powerfully dramatic situations, and his comedies are a triumph of the grotesque, with a mordant tone reminiscent of the work of Gil Vicente.[4]

Selected bibliography

Film and television adaptations

References

  1. ^ "Grémio Lusitano". Gremiolusitano.eu. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.
  2. ^ "Biografia de Camilo Castelo Branco (Lisboa, 1825 - São Miguel de Ceide/Vila Nova de Famalicão, 1890), Centro de Documentação de Autores Portugueses". Direcção-Geral do Livro e das Bibliotecas. January 2005. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015.
  3. ^ A Vida de Camillo Anno a Anno, por António Cabral, Livraria Ferreira, Lisboa, 1918, pág. 59
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Prestage, Edgar (1911). "Castello Branco, Camillo". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 472.
  5. ^ "CAMILLO CASTELLO BRANCO. – ESBÔÇO DE CRÍTICA. OTHELO. O MOURO DE VENEZA – 1ªEDIÇÃO RARA – Valongo". Archived from the original on September 1, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011.
  6. ^ "Camillo Castello Branco – Esboço de Crítica, Otelo, o Mouro de Veneza, bom estado, papel escurecido de época, com carimbo do antigo dono. em bom estado, escasso, rara camiliana". Retrieved May 19, 2011.
  7. ^ "Camilo Castelo Branco". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 28, 2009.

External links

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