António Feliciano de Castilho
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António Feliciano de Castilho, 1st Viscount of Castilho (28 January 180018 June 1875) was a
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
writer.


Life

Castilho was born in Lisbon. He lost his
sight Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...
at the age of six, but the devotion of his brother Augusto, and aided by a retentive memory, enabled him to go through his school and university course with success; and he acquired an almost complete mastery of the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
language and literature. His first work of importance, the ''Cartas de Echo e Narciso'' (1821), belongs to the pseudo-classical school in which he had been brought up, but his romantic leanings became apparent in the ''Primavera'' (1822) and in ''Amor e Melancholia'' (1823), two volumes of honeyed and prolix
bucolic A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music ( pastorale) that depic ...
poetry. In the poetic legends ''A noite do Castello'' (1836) and ''Ciúmes do bardo'' (1838) Castilho appeared as a full-blown
Romanticist Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
. These books exhibit the defects and qualities of all his work, in which lack of ideas and of creative imagination and an atmosphere of artificiality are ill-compensated for by a certain emotional charm, great purity of diction and melodious versification. Belonging to the didactic and descriptive school, Castilho saw nature as all sweetness, pleasure and beauty, and he lived in a dreamland of his imagination. A fulsome epic on the succession of King John VI brought him an office of profit at
Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...
. On his return from a stay in Madeira, he founded the ''Revista Universal Lisbonense'', in imitation of Herculano's ''Panorama'', and his profound knowledge of the
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
classics served him well in the introduction and notes to a very useful publication, the ''Livraria Classica Portugueza'' (1845–47, 25 volumes), while two years later he established the "Society of the Friends of Letters and the Arts." A study on
Luís de Camões Luís Vaz de Camões (; sometimes rendered in English as Camoens or Camoëns, ; c. 1524 or 1525 – 10 June 1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespear ...
and treatises on metrification and
mnemonics A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imager ...
followed from his pen. His praiseworthy zeal for popular instruction led him to take up the study of
pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
, and in 1850 he brought out his ''Leitura Repentina'', a method of reading which was named after him, and he became government commissary of the schools which were destined to put it into practice. Going to
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
in 1854, he there wrote his famous ''Letter to the Empress''. Though Castilho's lack of strong individuality and his excessive respect for authority prevented him from achieving original work of real merit, yet his translations of
Anacreon Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ...
,
Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
and
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
and the ''Chave do Enigma'', explaining the romantic incidents that led to his first marriage with D. Maria de Baena, a niece of the satirical poet
Nicolau Tolentino de Almeida Nicolau Tolentino de Almeida (10 September 1740 – 23 June 1811Tolentino de Almeida, Nicolau
...
and a descendant of António Ferreira, reveal him as a master of form and a purist in language. His versions of
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
's ''
Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...
'' and
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's '' A Midsummer Night's Dream'', made without a knowledge of German and English, scarcely added to his reputation. When the Coimbra question arose in 1865, Garrett was dead and Herculano had ceased to write, leaving Castilho supreme, for the moment, in the realm of letters. But the youthful
Antero de Quental Antero Tarquínio do Quental (; old spelling ''Anthero'') (18 April 184211 September 1891) was a Portuguese poet, philosopher, and writer. Do Quental is regarded as one of the greatest poets of his generation and is recognized as one of the most i ...
withstood his claim to direct the rising generation and attacked his superannuated leadership, and after a fierce war of pamphlets Castilho was dethroned. The rise of João de Deus reduced him to a secondary position in the Portuguese Parnassus, and when he died ten years later much of his former fame had preceded him to the tomb. Castilho died in Lisbon.


Named after

A club named GS Castilho based in
Mindelo Mindelo is a port cityCabo Verde, Statistical Yearbook ...
, Cape Verde is named after him. The club was founded by students on 18 February 1923 during Portuguese rule. It is the second oldest club in Cape Verde.


References

Attribution: *


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Castilho, Antonio Feliciano De 1800 births 1875 deaths Blind poets Romantic poets 19th-century Portuguese poets Portuguese male poets Portuguese journalists Portuguese translators People from Lisbon 19th-century journalists Male journalists 19th-century translators 19th-century male writers