António Gedeão

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António Gedeão , actually Romulo Vasco da Gama de Carvalho (born November 24, 1906 in Lisbon , Portugal, † February 19, 1997 there ) was an important Portuguese scientist, historian and writer. He worked as a photographer, editor , poet, narrator, teacher, playwright, non-fiction author, chemist , physicist and essayist .

Romulo de Carvalho was a figure of the century for Portugal in the field of science, especially the natural sciences. He stood out above all for teaching the natural sciences to young people and laypeople in a country that did not have a great natural history. As a historian, he extensively researched the history of science in Portugal and thus created standard works.

He was also important as a writer. Already influenced by literature as a child, he primarily created a poetic universe that earned him a special role within contemporary poetry in Portugal. Some mention him in the same breath as Fernando Pessoa and are even of the opinion that - apart from Pessoa - there was no more important poet with the Portuguese tongue than Antonio Gedeão in the twentieth century. As a poet, essayist, playwright, and narrator, he created an extensive body of work, in addition to which he wrote countless non-fiction books and popular scientific texts under his real name. His influence on the intellectual and cultural life of Portugal is palpable to this day. As a scientist, he set standards that Portugal, in an unprecedented form, scientifically catapulted the country into the twentieth century. As a writer, his effect on music is also unmistakable. In addition, de Carvalho's eccentric curriculum vitae, who managed social advancement from a child from a humble background, plays a role that was unique for Portugal for a long time.

Antonio Gedeão is considered a great figure in Portuguese culture of all time and one of the greatest Portuguese-tongue poets.

Life

Childhood and youth

He was born as Romulo de Carvalho on November 24th, 1906. At this time Portugal was still a monarchy under King Charles I and his competitor Fernando Pessoa was just 18 years old.

Romulo was born to Jose Avelino da Gama de Carvalho, a simple postal worker, and Dona Rosa da Dores Oliveira Gama de Carvalho, a housewife and amateur poet. His origins were easy to name by Portuguese standards; his parents had no academic background. He was the third and youngest child and had two older sisters, Graciete and Noemi. His maternal grandfather, Dom Sebastiao Jaime da Gama de Carvalho, was Kapellmeister of Faro Cathedral and sacred music composer. Romulo's childhood is portrayed as very happy, harmonious and orderly.

The boy, who would be classified as highly intelligent today, was introduced to literature at an early age in his parents' home. Despite the lack of educated middle-class style, the family had a full bookcase and the boy read the classics of Portuguese literature as a child; by the age of ten he had already read through the Lusiads of Camões in full, as well as many works by José Maria Eça de Queiroz and trained himself on verse by Cesario Verde .

He wrote his first poem at the age of five, like Fernando Pessoa, and at the age of 10 he wrote a sequel to the Lusiaden, which comprised several pages of his own poems, was written in the Renaissance style and published as a sensation in the daily newspaper Noticias de Evora were. In 1920 the text then appeared in an anthology . At the age of 11 he had already tried his hand at being a playwright and wrote a small, fragmentarily preserved play in five acts about Vasco da Gama using his middle name .

First he attended the Colegio Santa Maria in Lisbon, then from 1917 to 1925 he went to the Liceu Gil Vicente . But he was still too young to actually switch to grammar school, had always been bored in class, asked the teachers to give lessons in literature and history and learned the French language autodidactically out of boredom.

At high school he got to know his great cultural love, which was to accompany him for the rest of his life: the natural sciences. They never let go of him.

Academic years

He first enrolled in Lisbon in 1925 as a student of engineering with a focus on military technology . But as early as 1928 he switched studies and began studying chemistry and physics at the Faculdade Sciencias e Technologia of the University of Porto , which he graduated in 1931. From 1931 to 1935 he studied to become a teacher and took his state examination in 1935. From then on he worked as a teacher of physics and chemistry at the country's large and renowned high schools, which had elite status. So the Liceu Camoes, the Liceu Pedro Nunes and the Liceu Dom Joao III belonged. in Coimbra .

As a student he was already successful in a literary showcase: in 1927 he wrote a play about studying called Quod est, est that was interesting for students and that made him and a fellow student competition winners in a competition for theater plays. As a reward, the play was performed in one of the most important stages in Portugal, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, the legendary actor Vasco Santana played the leading role and the play, which was only allowed to run for one season, was a huge success.

The scientist

For decades until his retirement he worked as a teacher in schools and at the same time was active under his real name as the author of countless popular and scientific works for children, young people and laypeople. That earned him great reputation. He was able to teach the natural sciences to children and young people in practice as a teacher and in theory as an author. He knew that natural sciences had led a shadowy existence in Portugal for centuries, as the influence of the Catholic Church was immense and mediation by the official Church and the Inquisition had long been forbidden or frowned upon. But he didn't just keep an eye on students and laypeople, his work also dealt with the history of natural sciences in Portugal. Above all , he studied the Baroque period and the Marques de Pombal intensively and wrote several standard works about it in Portugal, which for the first time put the natural sciences into the focus of the Portuguese scientific world, which is strongly influenced by the humanities and cultural sciences. As editor of Gazeta de Fisica from 1946 to 1974, he played a key role in one of the very few scientific journals in the country.

Romulo de Carvalho was married twice and had two children.

The poet Antonio Gedeão

It was not until the age of 50 that he began a second career as a poet and writer. Although he had published sporadically since childhood, this had mostly been in scattered works. Now his first volume of poetry has been published, which has been followed by others, as well as essays in magazines, plays and short stories.

With his pseudonym Antonio Gedeão, however, he became famous primarily as a poet. In his poetry, shaped humanistically, he celebrates loneliness, life, hope and attempts a symbiosis between natural sciences, the “cold culture”, and poetry, “the warm culture”. He was committed to humanism and democracy, but wrote between the lines so that his work did not attract attention during the dictatorship and got through the censorship.

As editor-in-chief of the school newspaper of the Liceus Pedro Nunes Palestra from 1965 to 1972, he was able to address his ideas about natural sciences directly to his audience.

His poem Poema para Galilei , written on the occasion of the 400th birthday of the scientist Galileo Galilei , was just translated into Italian and appeared in a bilingual double edition with foreword and afterword in a brochure, which was officially published to the texts on the occasion of the anniversary year and by the Italian Ministry of Culture were issued.

Various poems were set to music and used for songs. For example, the poems Pedras Filosofal and Lagrima de Preta as well as his famous poem Poema para Galileo were set to music. The composer and singer-songwriter Jose Niza released a record in 1972, the songs of which were all texts by Gedeao, entitled Fala do Homem Nascido .

The poet's death

Even if Romulo de Carvalho did not die until 1997, the poet Antonio Gedeão fell silent as early as 1990. Carvalho let him die without dying himself, his age was probably the decisive factor. The death of the poet was announced in the media by Romulo de Carvalho himself by announcing that he would no longer publish poems. In 1990 the Poemas Postumos appeared, which should refer to the posthumous verses of Gedeao. Gedeão was a fictional character behind which the scientist hid. He played a similar game as his competitor Pessoa had done with his heteronyms , only that Antonio Gedeao had no physiognomy of his own , but was just a pseudonym of Carvalho.

reception

Gedeão received great awards and became an important figure in Portuguese culture. A school was named after him while he was still alive, and he became an honorary senator of the Academy of Sciences of Portugal and the Sociedade Portuguesa de Fisica . On his 90th birthday he received numerous honors from the state. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Évora and one of the highest honors in the Portuguese Republic: the Grand Cross of the Order of Santiago de Espada, awarded by the President of the Portuguese Republic. The film documentary Romulo de Carvalho eo seu Amigo Antonio Gedeão (Romulo de Carvalho and his friend Antonio Gedeão), (1996), was published while he was still alive. It illuminated the lives of poets and scientists with a wink.

The hundredth birthday was celebrated in a big way and a website was set up to refer to the life and work of Antonio Gedeão / Romulo de Carvalho. At a colloquium, many national and international scholars and cultural greats came together who remembered de Carvalho in speeches and events. The two internationally best known participants were the Portuguese writer Urbano Tavares Rodrigues and the Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi .

The Premio Romulo de Carvalho is awarded by the University of Evora and awarded to scientists in Portugal who have made outstanding contributions to teaching natural sciences.

The record company Decca Records released a CD in 2006, on which Gedeão's original poems, spoken by himself, could be heard.

Awards (selection)

Work (selection)

Scientific history works

  • Historia da Fundacao do Colegio Real dos Nobres de Lisboa, 1959.
  • Relacoes entre Portugal ea Russia no seculo XVIII, 1979.
  • A fisica experimental em Portugal no seculo XVIII, 1982.
  • A astronomia em Portugal no seculo XVIII, 1985.
  • A historia natural em Portugal no seculo XVIII, 1987.
  • Biografia sobre Dom Joao Carlos de Braganca, 2nd Duque de Lafoes, fundador de Academica de Sciencias de Lisboa, 1987. (biography of the founder of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences).

Popular scientific works (selection)

  • Enbalsamento Egipcio, 1948.
  • Historia do Telefone, 1952.
  • Historia da Fotografia, 1952.
  • Historia dos Baloes, 1953.
  • Historia do Atomo, 1955.
  • Que ea fisica ?, 1959.
  • A fisica para o povo, 1968.

Didactic works, works for schools (selection)

  • Compendia de Quimica para o 3 ciclo, 1949.
  • A descoberta do mundo fisico, 1979.
  • A natureza corpuscula da materia, 1979.
  • A composicao do Ar, 1982.
  • A corrente electrica, 1983.

Fictional works (selection)

Poetic works

  • Movimento perpetua, 1956, poetry.
  • Teatro do Mundo, 1958, poetry.
  • Maquina da Fogo, 1961, poetry.
  • Linhas de Forcas, 1967, poetry.
  • Poemas Postumos, 1983, poetry.
  • Novos Poemas postumos, 1990, poetry.
  • Poesia Completa, 1990, poetry.

Plays

  • Vasco da Gama, 1917, drama in 5 acts (fragmentary)
  • Quo est, est, 1927, student drama.
  • RTX 78/24, 1963.
  • Historia Breve da Luna, 1981.

Others

  • A poltrana e outras novelas, 1973, short stories.
  • Memorias de Lisboa, illustrated book for Lisbon, (as a photographer), 2000. (Posthumous).

Countless publications of a fictional and scientific nature in magazines, newspapers and anthologies.

swell

personal data
SURNAME Gedeão, António
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gedeão, Antonio; Carvalho, Romulo Vasco da Gama de (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese scientist, historian and writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon , Portugal
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1997
Place of death Lisbon , Portugal