Mário de Sá-Carneiro (; May 19, 1890 – April 26, 1916) was a Portuguese poet and writer. He is one of the best known authors of the " Geração D'Orpheu", and is usually considered their greatest poet, after

Fernando Pessoa Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa (; ; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, and publisher. He has been described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th c ...

Life

Mário de Sá-Carneiro was born to a wealthy family with a strong

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

tradition. His mother died in 1892 when he was two years old, and he was subsequently raised by his grandparents. He lived on a farm near

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

where he would spend most of his life. Sá-Carneiro started writing poems at the age of 12. By the age of 15, he had already translated several works by

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

. By 16, he had translated some works of

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

and

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

. He began to write fiction in high school, partly due to his work as an actor. In 1911, he left for

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 ...

, where he was admitted to

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

, although he never progressed beyond his first year. However, he met a man who would soon become his closest friend,

, and who introduced him to the group of

modernists Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and social issues were all aspects of this moveme ...

. After leaving the ''city of students'', as

is known, Sá-Carneiro went to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to study at the Sorbonne. Although his father continued to pay for his studies, Sá-Carneiro stopped attending classes very soon after arriving in Paris. He lived a

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a ...

lifestyle, roaming round the

theatres Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communica ...

and bars. It was in

that he met Guilherme de Santa-Rita (Santa-Rita Pintor), the legendary Portuguese painter.

''Orpheu''

Together with

and Almada Negreiros, he wrote for ''Orpheu'', a literary journal of

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

and artistic

prose Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

influenced by

cosmopolitanism Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational, believing humans can and should be " world citizen ...

and the European ''

Avant-Garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

''. The magazine caused a scandal in Portuguese society because of its futuristic idealism. Only two issues of the magazine were published. A third one was prepared but never published, owing to the controversy surrounding the magazine and a lack of money. Today, ''Orpheu'' is known for being one of the finest and most important examples of Portuguese

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

, and for introducing

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

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 ...

Depression

Sá-Carneiro memorial slab on the building where he committed suicide on April 26, 1916 (Rue Victor-Massé 29, Paris). In July 1915, Sá-Carneiro returned to Paris by train. He planned, with

, to publish issue no. 3 of '' Orpheu'', but his father and sponsor of the magazine, living in Mozambique at the time, refused to disburse more money. While World War I was in progress in the north of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, he left the university and started a relationship with a prostitute. A few months later, with growing financial problems and depression, Sá-Carneiro wrote a dramatic letter to

on March 31, 1916: :"Unless there occurs a miracle, next Monday, March (or even the day before), your friend Mário de Sá-Carneiro will take a strong dose of strychnine and disappear from this world." Extremely unhappy with his life, he still delayed the suicide by almost one month. But, as he had proclaimed, at the age of 25 he killed himself. '' Orpheu'' nr.3 was never published.

Work

Mário de Sá-Carneiro In 1910, he wrote his first play, ''Amizade'' (the title means friendship), in partnership with Tomás Cabreira Júnior. On the 9th of January 1911, Tomás Cabreira Júnior fatally shot himself with a shotgun in the middle of the school's playground, causing Sá-Carneiro to write the poem "A um suicida" (To a suicidal). In 1912, he published ''Príncipio'', a collection of

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

s dedicated to his father. In 1913, he published '' A Confissão de Lúcio'', one of his most famous works. This novella has a story where the fantastic reigns and it's a mirror to this age of ''Avant-garde''. In 1915, the work '' Céu em Fogo'', that gathered twelve novellas, was published. This book reveals the obsessions and disturbances that Sá-Carneiro was living with at the time. Sá-Carneiro's first publication of

was '' Dispersão'', published in 1913, which included twelve poems. He wrote another book, '' Indícios de Oiro'', but it was not published until over twenty years after his death, in the magazine '' Presença''. In 1946 these two books were published along with some of Sá-Carneiro's poems in the ''Orpheu'' magazine as a unique book. His literary influences include

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...

, Cesário Verde and António Nobre. English poet

Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...

translated three of his poems into English. American poet

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for '' The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960), '' Ariel'' (1965), a ...

also admired his work, in particular his novel ''A Confissão de Lúcio'' (''Lúcio's Confession'').

Centennial Anniversary of Mário de Sá-Carneiro's death

The 100th anniversary of Mário de Sá-Carneiro's death, on April 26, 2016, was highlighted in Portugal and abroad with a number of publications and events, such as the colloquium "Sá-Carneiro et les autres" (Paris), the exhibit "Mil Anos Me Separam de Amanhã" (Paredes de Coura), integrated in the festival Realizar-Poesia, an exhibit at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, titled "Mário de Sá-Carneiro, 'O Homem São Louco'", and a conference and audio-theatre at the Casa Fernando Pessoa.

References

External links

Mário de Sá-Carneiro Online

Mário de Sá-Carneiro

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

* * *
''Mário de Sá Carneiro (1890-1916)'', Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional, 1990

* ttp://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/pessoas/mario-de-sa-carneiro-53829.html#.XMj99SbsZkR Biografia, Instituto Camões
Mário de Sá-Carneiro, escritas.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sa-Carneiro, Mario De 1890 births 1916 suicides 20th-century Portuguese writers 20th-century Portuguese male writers 20th-century Portuguese poets Modernist poets Writers from Lisbon Portuguese male poets 1916 deaths Suicides in Paris