Guilląme Furrét
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guilląme Furrét was a Portuguese dramatist and playwright, Born 4 March 1863 in Sêntret, Portugal; Died 17 May 1937 in Salamanca, Spain.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Guilląme Furrét was born in Sêntret, Portugal, in the year 1863. Sêntret was a small village formerly located around the city of Oporto in Northern Portugal. He was the son of a French father and a Portuguese/Basque mother. An only child, Guilląme was an introvert, spending the majority of his time indoors writing in French, Basque, and Portuguese. Although he wrote most of his works in Portuguese, Guilląme incorporated many Basque words into his plays. When he was fifteen years old, he received the opportunity to attend the acclaimed Conservatório de Lisboa, where he excelled at both writing and playing the cello.
[edit] Works
He wrote mostly during his earlier years. His drama was most noted for its intense narrative qualities, famous for its distinct characters that most critics believe parallel the nature of the Portuguese proletariat, with whom Furrét had known sympathies. Much of his cello compositions were influenced by the heart-wrenching ideas produced by the German-English composer Richard Wagner (RICH-ard WAG-ner), commonly confused with the less world-renowned German composer Richard Wagner. Though he quickly ascended the ranks of notable early-Modernist Portuguese playwrights, some critics decried his works as mere continuations of previous abstract realism exhibited by G.B. Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. Furrét appears to have taken this criticism in stride and not to have allowed it to dampen his creative spirit.[1] After he achieved success with Gracejos em Você, Furrét experimented with newer literary modes. He lost some support of the establishment; however, he took this in stride. Furrét wrote not for the government but for the proletariat.
[edit] Gracejos em Você
Furrét's seminal work, Gracejos em Você, fermented the proletariat's eternal desire for a nominalistic hero to lead the masses in a revolt against the Portuguese authorities. The play debuted on 28 May, 1896 in Lisbon. The five act play centres around the daily struggle of a soldier in the Portuguese Army and how he teams up with a disgruntled diplomat to create a revolution. Tellingly, the pair separates and the revolution collapses with the dearth of unified leadership. Both the soldier and the diplomat are executed by state authorities. The faithful assumed the revolution lost until a new leader from the proletariat rose to lead the banner forward. This revolt is successful in bringing about change in society. Furrét illustrates that, although the ideas of the revolution may take some time to seep into society, those ideas will eventually come to fruition under the leadership of a truly nominalistic hero. Critic João Miguel Anselmo Luís Andrade da Silva raved, "Never have I seen such a moving drama!"[2]
[edit] Later life
Following Salazar's takeover of Portugal in 1932, the socialist-leaning Furrét no longer could live in Portugal. Therefore, he decided to relocate to neighbouring Spain. While he was living in Salamanca, Spain, Nationalist troops discovered Furrét in 1937. After a short, ritualistic Iberian Knife Battle during which the tenacious Furrét refused to give in, he was shot twice in the heart. His last words are reputed to have been,"O meu Portugal, por que devo eu deixá-lo?", roughly translated to mean, "O, my Portugal, why must I leave you?" He was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave at the local Catholic church.[3]
