Almeida Garrett

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João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, 1st Viscount Almeida Garrett, pron. IPA: [aɫ'mɐidɐ ga'ʁɛt(ɨ)], (Porto, February 4, 1799—December 9, 1854) was a Portuguese Romanticist poet, novelist, dramatist, and Liberal politician.

[edit] Biography

He was born in Porto as the son of António Bernardo da Silva Garrett and Ana Augusta de Almeida Leitão. In 1807 he fled the French invasion carried out by Jean-Andoche Junot's troops, seeking refuge in Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira Island, Azores. While in the Azores, he was taught by his uncle, Alexandre da Sagrada Família, then the Bishop of Angra. In 1818, he moved to Coimbra to study at the local university's law school. In 1818, he published O Retrato de Vénus, a work for which was soon to be prosecuted, as it was considered "materialist, atheist, and immoral"; it was during this period that he adopted his pen name Almeida Garrett.

He took part in the 1820 Liberal Revolution of Porto, and was exiled to England after the 1823 "Vilafrancada"; he had just married Luísa Midosi, who was only 14 years old at the time. He began his association with Romanticism, being subject to the first-hand influences of William Shakespeare and Walter Scott, as well as to that of Gothic aesthetics. Garrett then left for France, where he wrote Camões (1825) and Dona Branca (1826) – both poems are usually considered the first Romanticist works in Portuguese literature. In 1826, he returned to Portugal, where he settled for two years, under the rule of King Miguel of Portugal, until a new period of absolutism was brought about; he again settled in England, publising Adozina and Catão (both in 1828).

Almeida Garrett, together with Alexandre Herculano and Joaquim António de Aguiar took part in the Landing of Mindelo, carried out during the Liberal Wars. When a constitutional monarchy was established, he briefly served as its Consul General to Brussels; upon his return, he was acclaimed as one of the major orators of Liberalism, and took innitiative in the creation of a new Portuguese theater (during the period, he wrote his historical plays Gil Vicente, D. Filipa de Vilhena, and O Alfageme de Santarém).

In 1843, Garrett published Romanceiro e Cancioneiro Geral, a collection of folklore; two years later, he wrote the first volume of his historical novel O Arco de Santana (fully published in 1850, it took inspiration from Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame). O Arco de Santana signified a change in Garrett's style, leading to a more complex and subjective prose with which he experimented at length in Travels in My Homeland (Viagens na Minha Terra, (1846). His innovative manner was also felt in his poem collections Flowers without Fruit (1844) and Fallen Leaves (Folhas Caídas, 1853).

Nobled by Pedro V of Portugal in 1854, Garrett was Minister of Foreign Affairs for only a few days in the same year (in the cabinet of the Duke of Saldanha).

Almeida Garrett ended his relationship with Luísa Midosi in 1835, and married Adelaide Pastor in 1841 – she was to remain his wife until his death.

He died of cancer in Lisbon and was buried in the Jerónimos Monastery. His name was given to the library in Porto (the Almeida Garrett Municipal Library – Biblioteca Municipal Almeida Garret).