Francisco Manuel de Melo

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Cathedral Francisco Manuel de Mello

Dom Francisco Manuel de Mello (* 23. November 1608 in Lisbon ; † 13. October 1666 in Alcântara ) was a Portuguese writer of the baroque .

In general, Melo is considered to be the most important Portuguese Baroque poet and one of the most important writers of the Portuguese Baroque alongside António Vieira . Overall, he is also referred to as one of the most influential figures in Portugal during the Baroque and 17th century.

He wrote his work in two languages, he wrote in Portuguese and Castilian . His diverse work consists of poems, plays, historical books and humanistic treatises.

Life

Francisco Manuel de Melo came from a noble family. In Lisbon he studied human sciences and mathematics at the Jesuit College of Santo Antão . After completing his studies, he began a military career, which took him to Flanders , where he commanded a Portuguese regiment against the Dutch in 1639 during the Thirty Years' War. In total, he was active in the service of the Order of Christ for the Spanish army for more than five years . After the end of his military career he came to the Spanish court, where he was employed as a courtier. There he made friends with the famous Spanish satirist Francisco de Quevedo . First for the Spanish and later for the restored Portuguese crown (Portugal had become independent again under King Dom Johann IV after the personal union with Spain in 1640 ), he was a diplomat in many parts of Europe. So he came to London to help investigate the attack on the Portuguese ambassador Francisco Cardoso and also worked for some time in Rome as a diplomat, as the Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See .

Because of his political views, he was thrown into prison by the Portuguese crown in 1641 and spent a total of nine years there. In 1650 he was released and had to go into exile in Bahia in Brazil . Much of his literary work was created during his prison stay and in exile in Brazil.

At the age of just 57, he died after an adventurous life on October 13, 1666 in what is now the Lisbon suburb of Alcantara.

Poetry and meaning

Melo is considered to be the initiator of the “Academia dos Generosos”, a poetry academy aimed at promoting young poets. His work is relatively well documented, but some works were only published posthumously. The poems were published in two languages, Portuguese and Castilian. They encompassed almost all genres of poetry at the time: sonnets , odes , eclogues , octaves , madrigals , epistles , terzines , glosses . In addition to the national poet Camões , he is considered a pioneer and adept of the Saudade or Saudosismo . Many poems are heavily melancholy and cover the themes of grief, loss, pain, suffering and death. Works were also created that dealt with history and made him a chronicler. Moral writings show the urbane humanist who Melo was too. A farce of him has even survived as a playwright . Melo was one of the most important authors in Portuguese cultural and literary history. His work made him well known in Spain and made him a chronicler of Portugal during the baroque period. His work has not yet been translated into German. However, individual poems were translated into French as early as the 17th century.

plant

  • Historia de los movimentos y separacion de cataluna , 1645, historical writing. New edition 1912  - Internet Archive
  • Auto do fidalgo aprendiz , (Game of the Knight's Apprentice), Farce, created 1646, published 1665.
  • Carta de Guia de Casadas , 1651, moral writing.
  • Epanaphoras de varia historia portugueza , 1660, historical writing. archive.org
  • Obras morales , 1664, moral writing.
  • Cartas familiares , 1664, letters.
  • Obras Metricos , 1665.
  • As segundas tres musas , (The Second Three Muses), 1665, complete poetic work.
  • Apologos Dialogaes , (Imagined Conversations), posthumously 1721, socially critical texts. New edition 1900  - Internet Archive
  • D. Teodosiu Duque de Braganca , posthumously 1945, historical writing.

literature

  • Edgar Prestage : D. Francisco Manuel de Mello: Esboço biographico . Imprensa da Universidade, Coimbra 1914. Biography in Portuguese.
  • Knaur's Lexicon of World Literature. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-426-77169-1 .
  • Major works of Spanish and Portuguese literature. In: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon . Kindler-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-463-40279-3 .
  • Manuel de Mello, Dom Francisco . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 17 : Lord Chamberlain - Mecklenburg . London 1911, p. 6009 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Francisco Manuel de Melo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Melo, Francisco Manuel de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mello, Francisco Manuel de; Francisco Cathedral
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese poet
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1608
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1666
Place of death Alcântara