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Francisco de Sá de Miranda (28 August 1481 – 17 May 1558; ) was a Portuguese poet of the
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.


Life

Sá de Miranda was born in
Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...
, the son of a
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Gonçalo Mendes de Sá belonging to the ancient and noble family of and Inês de Melo. His brother,
Mem de Sá Mem de Sá ( – 2 March 1572) was a Governor-General of the Portuguese colony of Brazil from 1557 to 1572. He was born in Coimbra, Kingdom of Portugal, around 1500, the year of discovery of Brazil by a naval fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabra ...
, was the third governor of the Portuguese
colony of Brazil Colonial Brazil (), sometimes referred to as Portuguese America, comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal. During the 300 years of Brazilian col ...
. Sá de Miranda passed his early years by the banks of the river Mondego, considered a source of inspiration to many other poets. He made his first studies of
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,
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and
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
in the
college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
of the Santa Cruz Monastery, and in 1505 went to
University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...
(the
University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...
had moved to Lisbon in 1380) to study law, beginning at the same time to attend the Portuguese court and write poems in the mediaeval style still dominant in
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
. Verse-making and gallantry occupied much of his time at court, and he became one of a group comprising the greatest nobles and most celebrated poets of the age, including
Bernardim Ribeiro Bernardim Ribeiro (1482October 1552) was a Renaissance Portuguese poet and writer. Early life Ribeiro was a native of Torrão in the Alentejo. His father, Damião Ribeiro, was implicated in a conspiracy against King John II in 1484, and had t ...
and Cristóvão Falcão, who surrounded the
courtier A courtier () is a person who attends the royal court of a monarch or other royalty. The earliest historical examples of courtiers were part of the retinues of rulers. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the officia ...
Leonor de Mascareñas Leonor de Mascareñas (died 1583), was a Portuguese courtier. She was the lady-in-waiting and confidante of the queen regent of Spain, Isabella of Portugal, and served as the royal governess of Philip II of Spain Philip II (21 May 152713 Sept ...
. He seems to have resided for the most part in the capital up to 1521, dividing his time between the palace and the university, where he had taken the degree of
Doctor of Law A Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is a doctoral degree in legal studies. The abbreviation LL.D. stands for ''Legum Doctor'', with the double “L” in the abbreviation referring to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both canon law ...
by 1516. He accompanied the court as it moved from place to place during the reign of King Manuel, and although he witnessed military triumphs, he started pointing out the signs of
decadence Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, ...
and future disaster. He had come out of the university so good a lawyer that he was able to act as professor of his faculty, and he was offered a judicial post, but refused it. He had only embarked on a legal career to please his father, and on the latter's death he abandoned law for moral and stoic philosophy and poetry. He had observed with regret the modest intellectual position of his country, and resolved to travel. Sá de Miranda travelled to
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in 1521, where he was able to make contact with many writers and artists of the
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, including
Vittoria Colonna Vittoria Colonna (April 149225 February 1547), marchioness of Pescara, was an Italian noblewoman and poet. As an educated and married noblewoman whose husband was in captivity, Colonna was able to develop relationships within the intellectual ci ...
(who was his distant relative),
Pietro Bembo Pietro Bembo, (; 20 May 1470 – 18 January 1547) was a Venetian scholar, poet, and literary theory, literary theorist who also was a member of the Knights Hospitaller and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. As an intellectual of the Italian Re ...
, Sannazzaro and
Ariosto Ludovico Ariosto (, ; ; 8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic '' Orlando Furioso'' (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando Innamorato'', describ ...
. He assisted at the rebirth of Italian drama and saw the performance of classical prose comedies, a form of art which he was to transplant to Portugal. On his way home, in 1526, he visited
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, meeting classical writers Juan Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega. Back in Portugal in 1526 or 1527, he was again received at court, where he became a friend to King John III and other nobles. But although his reputation as a courtier and poet grew, the opposition of his literary foes increased. He also became pessimistic at the materialism of the age and neglect of agriculture. Four years after his return he decided to move to the
Minho Minho or Miño may refer to: People * Miño (surname) * Choi Min-ho, South Korean singer and actor known mononymously as Minho Places * Minho (river) or Miño, in Portugal and Spain Jamaica * Rio Minho, a river Portugal * Minho Province ...
province, in the North of the country, where he purchased land. Around 1530 he married Briolanja de Azevedo, a lady of
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birth. In 1552 he moved to the Quinta da Tapada, near
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. He continued to write and receive work from other poets, showing that his influence was well established. Three misfortunes followed in quick succession: his eldest son died in 1553, Prince John in 1554, and his wife in 1555. His friend John III died in 1557, and Sá de Miranda followed him in 1558, aged 76.


Work

Like many Portuguese writers of his time, Sá de Miranda often wrote in Castilian apart from Portuguese. His early work is all in the form of the typical 15th-century Portuguese poetry (the ''vilancete'', the ''cantiga'', the ''esparsa'' and the ''trova''). Influenced by his travels in Italy and Spain, Sá de Miranda introduced a new aesthetics in Portugal. He introduced the
sonnet A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...
, the
elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
, the eclogue, the
ottava rima Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio. The ottav ...
and other classical poetic forms, adapting the
Portuguese language Portuguese ( or ) is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tom� ...
to the Italian
hendecasyllable In poetry, a hendecasyllable (as an adjective, hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poe ...
verse. These forms, especially sonnet and ottava rima were later used by many Portuguese poets including Luís Vaz de Camões. Apart from poems, Sá de Miranda wrote two theatrical comedies following classical forms: ''Estrangeiros'', the first Portugues prose comedy (staged to great success in Coimbra in 1528 and published in 1559) and ''Vilhalpandos'' (written around 1530 and published in 1560). His tragedy ''Cleópatra''Sá de Miranda st Projecto Vercial.
/ref> has only survived in fragments. Sá de Miranda also left several letters in verse, addressed to people like King John III and his brother Mem de Sá.


References


Bibliography

* * ''Lusitania illustrata. Notices on the history, antiquities, literature &c'', by John Adamson, Newcastle on Tyne 1842. * ''Dreams of Waking: An Anthology of Iberian Lyric Poetry 1400-1700''. Edited and Translated by Vincent Barletta, Mark L. Bajus, Cici Malik, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2013.


External links


Poems by Francisco de Sá de Miranda at Portuguese Wikisource.

Francisco de Sá de Miranda's ''Versos portuguêses'' at Archive.org.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sa De Miranda, Francisco De 1481 births 1558 deaths 16th-century Portuguese poets 16th-century Portuguese male writers Portuguese male poets People from Coimbra University of Coimbra alumni 15th-century Portuguese writers