Vitorino Nemésio
Encyclopedia
Vitorino Nemésio Mendes Pinheiro da Silva (Praia da Vitória
, December 19, 1901 – Lisbon
, February 20, 1978) was a poet, author and intellectual from Terceira, Azores
, best known for his romance Mau Tempo No Canal, as well as being a professor in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon and member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon
. He was a grandparent of Maria Luísa Nemésio, the wife of Fernando Nobre
.
, on the island of Terceira
(1901).
His early education did not reflect the academic career that he would have; he encountered many problems as a student and was expelled from secondary school, repeating his fifth year of studies. Of his time in the secondary school in Angra do Heroísmo
, Nemésio indicated his fondness for history classes, and attributed this interest to Manuel António Ferreira Deusdado (his history teacher), who introduced him to the social sciences. At 16 years of age, for the first time, Nemésio travelled to the district capital of Horta
, to complete his entry exams for the National School: he was barely able to accomplish a passing mark. He did complete the entry exams in the General Course on July 16, 1918. His stayed in Horta from May to August 1918. On August 13, the newspaper O Telégrafo (although disparagingly reporting to Nemésio as a "provincial") published a notice about the young author'S first book of poetry, Canto Matinal, which was sent to the editor Manuel Emídio (it would later be publish in 1916). While at the school, he collaborated with other students in Eco Académico: Semanário dos Alunos do Liceu de Angra and help found the magazine Estrela d'Alva: Revista Literária Ilustrada e Noticiosa while completing his studies in Angra. Although relatively young, Nemesio had already developed republican ideals, having participated in literary, republican, and anarchist-unionist meetings while living in Angra. He was influenced primarily by his friend, Jaime Brasil, five-years his senior (the first intellectual mentor he knew), as well as others, such as the lawyer Luís da Silva Ribeiro and the author-librarian, Gervásio Lima.
In 1918 on the eve of the end of the First World War, Horta was the center of maritime commerce (with a vibrant night life), an obligatory port-of-call, a sight of fleet replenishment and crew liberty; the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable companies had installed themselves in Horta, contributing to a cosmopolitan environment, that would later motivate him to write Mau Tempo No Canal (which he began to work on after 1939). But, in 1919, he volunteered for military service in the infantry, allowing him to travel outside the Azores for the first time.
, he worked as a coordinator for A Pátria, A Imprensa de Lisboa and Última Hora, while completing his secondary school studies in Coimbra
(in 1921). He eventually enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Coimbra, where he worked as an editor in the student newspaper. By 1923, he joined the Coimbra Revolta Lodge of the Grand Order of Lusitania, a masonic
group. While working for the magazine Bizâncio, he learns of his father'S death. Three years later (1925), Nemésio switches from Law to Social and Applied Sciences in the Faculty of Letters to concentrate on the Histo-Geographic Sciences. During his first trip to Spain
(Salamanca
, specifically), with the Academic Choir in 1923, he meets the Spanish writer, philosopher and republican Miguel Unamuno
(1864–1936), a leader in revolutionary humanist theory, and staunch Anti-Francist, whom he would continue to correspond for years. With Afonso Duarte, António de Sousa, Branquinho da Fonseca, Gaspar Simões, among others, he founded the magazine Tríptico. His studies turn to Roman Languages by 1925; at the time, he collaborated with José Régio
, João Gaspar Simões and António de Sousa on the journal Humanidade: Quinzenário de Estudantes de Coimbra.
On February 12, 1926, Nemésio married Gabriela Monjardino de Azevedo Gomes (in Coimbra), with whom he would have four children: Georgina (Novembro 1926), Jorge (April 1929), Manuel (July 1930) and Ana Paula (at the end of 1931).
In 1930, Nemésio transferred to the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon, where, a year later, He would conclude his course in Roman Languages to begin offering classes in Italian Literature, and later, Spanish Literature (after 1931). He achieved his Doctorate in 1934, from the University of Lisbon, with his thesis A Mocidade de Herculano Até à Volta do Exílio (English: The Youth of Herculano Until Around the Exile). Between 1937 and 1939, he lectured At the Université Libre de Bruxelles
, returning in the last year to the Faculty of Letters in Lisbon.
His most complex, dense and subtle romance, Mau Tempo No Canal, remains one of the primary examples of contemporary Portuguese literature, which he would finally publish in 1944. Encomposing the islands of Faial
, Pico
, São Jorge and Terceira
, the romance evokes the period of 1917-1919, when the author lived in Horta and where people such as Dr. José Machado de Serpa (republicana senator), Father Nunes da Rosa (professor at the secondary school) and Osório Goulart (poet) were contemporaries. After his semenal work, Nemésis never returned to romance literature; in an unpublished epilogue to his romances, titled Morro autor de um romance único (English: I will die author of a unique romance), he affirmed that Mau Tempo No Canal was the high-point in his long literary career.
On visiting Horta for a second time, in 1946, he wrote Corsário das Ilhas (English: The Islands Corsair), where he reflected on his schooling:
Thirty years later Nemésio continued to remember the village of Horta as his "first refuge, of patriarchal hospitality and gentility in everything, or for everything".
In 1958, he lectured in Brazil
. On September 12, 1971, when he reached the public service age-limit, he completed his final lecture at the Faculty in Lisbon; a period of 40 years of service.
He died on February 20, 1978, in Lisbon, at the CUF Hospital, and was laid to rest in his adopted home, Coimbra
. Before his death, the author asked his son to bury him in the cemetery of Santo António dos Olivais, and that the bells play the Alleluia.
Vitorino Nemésio was one of the great writers of contemporary Portuguese literature, receiving in 1965, the Prémio Nacional da Literatura (English: National Literary Prize), as well as the 1974 Montaigne Prize. He was a writer of fiction and poetry, a chronicler, a biographer, a historian of literature, a journalist, a philosopher, an epistolograph
, a language expert and a television writer: ironic, owing to his terrible beginnings in the secondary school on Terceira.
Generally regional in his perspectives, his works elaborated on Azorean life, along with sentimental memories of his infancy, revealing a populist preoccupation with simple peoples who were profoundly human and living through aspects of human suffering. He published biographies, including his doctoral dissertation on Alexandre Herculano
, and his biography of Elizabeth of Portugal
, the saintly Queen. He also wrote of his trips to Brazil
, the Azores
and Madeira
, in which he contemplated diverse subjects associated with Portuguese and Brazilian history, including a dissertation on Gil Vicente
, as well as a critic of poetry.
Ironically, Nemésio was also a poet, which he eagerly affirmed and continued to publish uninterruptedly since 1916 (from Canto Matinal) until 1976 (Era do Átomo Crise do Homem). Óscar Lopes, writing on Nemésian poetry, noted two currents of verse in his work Nem toda a Noite a Vida (English: Not Every Night is there Life). The first thematic current is mostly regional; in particular, the nostalagia of island life, infancy, adolescences, his father and first prohibited love, which are obvious in O Bicho Harmonioso (English: The Harmonious Beast) and Eu, Comovido a Oeste. In his latter works there is a transformation, his themes are more metphysical and religious in tone; he debated themes of life and death, of being and the search for the meaning of life: purely existentialist
philosophy. In addition, the writer cultivates a populist poetry marked by Azorean symbolism, in which he was regularly accused of being a regionalist literary.
Praia da Vitória
Praia da Vitória is a municipality in Portugal's Autonomous Region of the Azores. The second largest administrative division on the island of Terceira, Praia da Vitória occupies the northern coast of the island and extends halfway into the interior having at its frontiers Pico Alto and the shield...
, December 19, 1901 – Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, February 20, 1978) was a poet, author and intellectual from Terceira, Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
, best known for his romance Mau Tempo No Canal, as well as being a professor in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon and member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon
Sciences Academy of Lisbon
The Sciences Academy of Lisbon ' was created in 1779 in Lisbon, Portugal, as an institution dedicated to the advancement of science and learning with the goal of promoting academic progress and prosperity to the country...
. He was a grandparent of Maria Luísa Nemésio, the wife of Fernando Nobre
Fernando Nobre
Fernando José de La Vieter Ribeiro Nobre is a Portuguese doctor who is the founder and president of the Portuguese NGO AMI . In 2007 he was voted as the 25th greatest Portuguese ever in the contest Os Grandes Portugueses, being the 5th most voted among Portuguese living people at that date...
.
Biography
Vitorino Nemesio was the son of Vitorino Gomes da Silva and Maria da Glória Mendes Pinheiro, and born in Praia da VitóriaPraia da Vitória
Praia da Vitória is a municipality in Portugal's Autonomous Region of the Azores. The second largest administrative division on the island of Terceira, Praia da Vitória occupies the northern coast of the island and extends halfway into the interior having at its frontiers Pico Alto and the shield...
, on the island of Terceira
Terceira Island
Referred to as the “Ilha Lilás” , Terceira is an island in the Azores archipelago, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56,000 inhabitants in an area of approximately 396.75 km²...
(1901).
His early education did not reflect the academic career that he would have; he encountered many problems as a student and was expelled from secondary school, repeating his fifth year of studies. Of his time in the secondary school in Angra do Heroísmo
Angra do Heroísmo
Angra do Heroísmo , locally referred to as Angra, is a municipality and city on the island of Terceira, within the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores. The municipal area has a population of 35,581 and an area of . Along with Praia da Vitória to the north, it is one of two municipal...
, Nemésio indicated his fondness for history classes, and attributed this interest to Manuel António Ferreira Deusdado (his history teacher), who introduced him to the social sciences. At 16 years of age, for the first time, Nemésio travelled to the district capital of Horta
Horta (Azores)
Horta is a single municipality and city in the western part of the Archipealgo of the Azores, encompassing the island of Faial. Horta has a population of about approximately 15,038 people and an area of 173.1 square kilometers. The population density is about 88 persons per square kilometer...
, to complete his entry exams for the National School: he was barely able to accomplish a passing mark. He did complete the entry exams in the General Course on July 16, 1918. His stayed in Horta from May to August 1918. On August 13, the newspaper O Telégrafo (although disparagingly reporting to Nemésio as a "provincial") published a notice about the young author'S first book of poetry, Canto Matinal, which was sent to the editor Manuel Emídio (it would later be publish in 1916). While at the school, he collaborated with other students in Eco Académico: Semanário dos Alunos do Liceu de Angra and help found the magazine Estrela d'Alva: Revista Literária Ilustrada e Noticiosa while completing his studies in Angra. Although relatively young, Nemesio had already developed republican ideals, having participated in literary, republican, and anarchist-unionist meetings while living in Angra. He was influenced primarily by his friend, Jaime Brasil, five-years his senior (the first intellectual mentor he knew), as well as others, such as the lawyer Luís da Silva Ribeiro and the author-librarian, Gervásio Lima.
In 1918 on the eve of the end of the First World War, Horta was the center of maritime commerce (with a vibrant night life), an obligatory port-of-call, a sight of fleet replenishment and crew liberty; the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable companies had installed themselves in Horta, contributing to a cosmopolitan environment, that would later motivate him to write Mau Tempo No Canal (which he began to work on after 1939). But, in 1919, he volunteered for military service in the infantry, allowing him to travel outside the Azores for the first time.
Academia
In LisbonLisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, he worked as a coordinator for A Pátria, A Imprensa de Lisboa and Última Hora, while completing his secondary school studies in Coimbra
Coimbra
Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...
(in 1921). He eventually enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Coimbra, where he worked as an editor in the student newspaper. By 1923, he joined the Coimbra Revolta Lodge of the Grand Order of Lusitania, a masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
group. While working for the magazine Bizâncio, he learns of his father'S death. Three years later (1925), Nemésio switches from Law to Social and Applied Sciences in the Faculty of Letters to concentrate on the Histo-Geographic Sciences. During his first trip to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
(Salamanca
Salamanca
Salamanca is a city in western Spain, in the community of Castile and León. Because it is known for its beautiful buildings and urban environment, the Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. It is the most important university city in Spain and is known for its contributions to...
, specifically), with the Academic Choir in 1923, he meets the Spanish writer, philosopher and republican Miguel Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...
(1864–1936), a leader in revolutionary humanist theory, and staunch Anti-Francist, whom he would continue to correspond for years. With Afonso Duarte, António de Sousa, Branquinho da Fonseca, Gaspar Simões, among others, he founded the magazine Tríptico. His studies turn to Roman Languages by 1925; at the time, he collaborated with José Régio
José Régio
José Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...
, João Gaspar Simões and António de Sousa on the journal Humanidade: Quinzenário de Estudantes de Coimbra.
On February 12, 1926, Nemésio married Gabriela Monjardino de Azevedo Gomes (in Coimbra), with whom he would have four children: Georgina (Novembro 1926), Jorge (April 1929), Manuel (July 1930) and Ana Paula (at the end of 1931).
In 1930, Nemésio transferred to the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon, where, a year later, He would conclude his course in Roman Languages to begin offering classes in Italian Literature, and later, Spanish Literature (after 1931). He achieved his Doctorate in 1934, from the University of Lisbon, with his thesis A Mocidade de Herculano Até à Volta do Exílio (English: The Youth of Herculano Until Around the Exile). Between 1937 and 1939, he lectured At the Université Libre de Bruxelles
Université Libre de Bruxelles
The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...
, returning in the last year to the Faculty of Letters in Lisbon.
His most complex, dense and subtle romance, Mau Tempo No Canal, remains one of the primary examples of contemporary Portuguese literature, which he would finally publish in 1944. Encomposing the islands of Faial
Faial Island
Faial Island , also known in English as Fayal, is a Portuguese island of the Central Group of the Azores....
, Pico
Pico Island
Pico Island , is an island in the Central Group of the Portuguese Azores noted for its eponymous volcano, Ponta do Pico, which is the highest mountain in Portugal, the Azores, and the highest elevation of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge...
, São Jorge and Terceira
Terceira Island
Referred to as the “Ilha Lilás” , Terceira is an island in the Azores archipelago, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56,000 inhabitants in an area of approximately 396.75 km²...
, the romance evokes the period of 1917-1919, when the author lived in Horta and where people such as Dr. José Machado de Serpa (republicana senator), Father Nunes da Rosa (professor at the secondary school) and Osório Goulart (poet) were contemporaries. After his semenal work, Nemésis never returned to romance literature; in an unpublished epilogue to his romances, titled Morro autor de um romance único (English: I will die author of a unique romance), he affirmed that Mau Tempo No Canal was the high-point in his long literary career.
On visiting Horta for a second time, in 1946, he wrote Corsário das Ilhas (English: The Islands Corsair), where he reflected on his schooling:
- "I like Horta like loquatLoquatThe loquat , Eriobotrya japonica, is a fruit tree in the family Rosaceae, indigenous to southeastern China. It was formerly thought to be closely related to the genus Mespilus, and is still sometimes known as the Japanese medlar...
s. I long nostalgically for whom I was, I don't how, when I was here. Everything I imagined and, more or less, was frustrated by was here; but Horta is not just going beyond...Matriz on high, where the homes of the noblemen existed and that the Jesuits adapted, and always cubical, fastidious, another two or three church convents on high; each points, when I leave, to the parishes ConceiçãoConceição (Horta)Conceição is a civil parish in the municipality of Horta in the Portuguese Azores. In 2001 it counted a population of 1157 inhabitants with territorial limits of 2.74 km² between Espalamaca and the parish of Matriz in Horta, although it is the second smallest parish within the administration...
and Angústias, it is what is needed to complete a good citizenship, white as a bride: Horta."
Thirty years later Nemésio continued to remember the village of Horta as his "first refuge, of patriarchal hospitality and gentility in everything, or for everything".
In 1958, he lectured in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. On September 12, 1971, when he reached the public service age-limit, he completed his final lecture at the Faculty in Lisbon; a period of 40 years of service.
Later life
He authored and presented the television program Se bem Me lembro, which contributed to popularizing his literary importance, while at the same time directing the newspaper O Dia between December 11, 1975 and October 25, 1976.He died on February 20, 1978, in Lisbon, at the CUF Hospital, and was laid to rest in his adopted home, Coimbra
Coimbra
Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...
. Before his death, the author asked his son to bury him in the cemetery of Santo António dos Olivais, and that the bells play the Alleluia.
Public works
His early literary passages were inspired by the Azores. Afonso Lopes Vireira would later note the presence of "infantile memories, and loves, pains and figures of humility, who in these pages, are alive and obsessed with the sea". Vitorino Nemésio's personal experiences are generally present in his published works, beginning with his volume of stories in Paço do Milhafre (Englihs: Path of the Eagle), in 1924. Prefaced by Afonso Lopes Vieira, and later Re−titled O Mistério do Paço do Milhafre (English: The Mystery of the Path of the Eagle), the work has been in publication since 1949. During his long literary career, the author has never stopped surprising readers. In his romances, for example, he transmitted a sense of originality, in particular, with his descriptions of places and complex characters, in which he was generously human (such as in Varanda de Pilatos, published in 1927, or his volume of novels A Casa Fechada (English: The Closed House), comprising three stories: O Tubarão (English: The Shark), Negócio de Pomba (English: The Doves Business) and A Casa Fechada).Vitorino Nemésio was one of the great writers of contemporary Portuguese literature, receiving in 1965, the Prémio Nacional da Literatura (English: National Literary Prize), as well as the 1974 Montaigne Prize. He was a writer of fiction and poetry, a chronicler, a biographer, a historian of literature, a journalist, a philosopher, an epistolograph
Epistolography
Epistolography is the art or practice of writing letters, with particular regard to their timeframe and cultural environment. Generally, the letters were written for a public audience, however, private letters could be useful for a better knowing of the author and his works.- Context :According...
, a language expert and a television writer: ironic, owing to his terrible beginnings in the secondary school on Terceira.
Generally regional in his perspectives, his works elaborated on Azorean life, along with sentimental memories of his infancy, revealing a populist preoccupation with simple peoples who were profoundly human and living through aspects of human suffering. He published biographies, including his doctoral dissertation on Alexandre Herculano
Alexandre Herculano
Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araújo , was a Portuguese novelist and historian.-Early life:...
, and his biography of Elizabeth of Portugal
Elizabeth of Aragon
Elizabeth of Aragon, also known as Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, T.O.S.F. , was queen consort of Portugal, a tertiary of the Franciscan Order and is venerated as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.-Biography:Elizabeth was a descendant of one of the most powerful families in Europe:...
, the saintly Queen. He also wrote of his trips to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
and Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
, in which he contemplated diverse subjects associated with Portuguese and Brazilian history, including a dissertation on Gil Vicente
Gil Vicente
Gil Vicente , called the Trobadour, was a Portuguese playwright and poet who acted in and directed his own plays. Considered the chief dramatist of Portugal he is sometimes called the "Portuguese Plautus,"[3] often referred to as the "Father of Portuguese drama" and as one of Western literature's...
, as well as a critic of poetry.
Ironically, Nemésio was also a poet, which he eagerly affirmed and continued to publish uninterruptedly since 1916 (from Canto Matinal) until 1976 (Era do Átomo Crise do Homem). Óscar Lopes, writing on Nemésian poetry, noted two currents of verse in his work Nem toda a Noite a Vida (English: Not Every Night is there Life). The first thematic current is mostly regional; in particular, the nostalagia of island life, infancy, adolescences, his father and first prohibited love, which are obvious in O Bicho Harmonioso (English: The Harmonious Beast) and Eu, Comovido a Oeste. In his latter works there is a transformation, his themes are more metphysical and religious in tone; he debated themes of life and death, of being and the search for the meaning of life: purely existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
philosophy. In addition, the writer cultivates a populist poetry marked by Azorean symbolism, in which he was regularly accused of being a regionalist literary.
Poetry
- Canto Matinal (1916)
- O Bicho Harmonioso (1938)
- Eu, Comovido a Oeste (1940)
- Festa Redonda (1950)
- Nem Toda a Noite a Vida (1953)
- O PãO e a Culpa (publicada em 1955)
- O Verbo e a Morte (1959)
- Canto de Véspera (1966)
- Sapateia Açoriana, Andamento HolandêS e Outros Poemas (1976)
Fiction
- PaçO de Milhafre (1924)
- Varanda de Pilatos (1926)
- Mau Tempo No Canal (1944), which won the Ricardo Malheiros Literary Prize;
Dissertations and Critics
- Sob Os Signos de Agora (1932)
- A Mocidade de Herculano (1934)
- RelaçõEs Francesas do Romantismo PortuguêS (1936)
- Ondas Médias (1945)
- Conhecimento de Poesia (1958)
Chronicles
- O Segredo de Ouro Preto (1954)
- Corsário das Ilhas (1956)
- Jornal do Observador (1974).