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António Feliciano de Castilho | |
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| Born | 28 January 1800 (1800-01-28) Lisbon, Portugal |
| Died | 18 June 1875 Lisbon, Portugal |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, pedagogist |
António Feliciano de Castilho, 1st Viscount of Castilho (28 January 1800 – 18 June 1875) was aPortuguese writer.
Castilho was born inLisbon.He lost hissight at the age of six, but the devotion of his brother Augusto, and the aid of a retentive memory, enabled him to go through his school and university course with success; and he acquired an almost complete mastery of theLatin language and literature.[1]
His first work of importance, theCartas de Echo e Narciso (1821), belongs to the pseudo-classical school in which he had been brought up, but hisromantic leanings became apparent in thePrimavera (1822) and inAmor e Melancholia (1823), two volumes of honeyed and prolixbucolic poetry. In the poetic legendsA noite do Castello (1836) andCiúmes do bardo (1838) Castilho appeared as a full-blownRomanticist. 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.[1]
Belonging to thedidactic and descriptive school, Castilho saw nature as all sweetness, pleasure and beauty, and he lived in a dreamland of his imagination. A fulsomeepic on the succession ofKing John VI brought him an office of profit atCoimbra. On his return from a stay inMadeira, he founded theRevista Universal Lisbonense, in imitation ofHerculano'sPanorama, and his profound knowledge of thePortuguese classics served him well in the introduction and notes to a very useful publication, theLivraria Classica Portugueza (1845–47, 25 volumes), while two years later he established the "Society of the Friends of Letters and the Arts."[1]
A study onLuís de Camões and treatises on metrification andmnemonics followed from his pen. His praiseworthy zeal for popular instruction led him to take up the study ofpedagogy, and in 1850 he brought out hisLeitura 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.[1]
Going toBrazil in 1854, he there wrote his famousLetter 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 ofAnacreon,Ovid andVirgil and theChave do Enigma, explaining the romantic incidents that led to his first marriage with D. Maria de Baena, a niece of thesatirical poetNicolau Tolentino de Almeida and a descendant ofAntónio Ferreira, reveal him as a master of form and a purist in language. His versions ofGoethe'sFaust andShakespeare'sA Midsummer Night's Dream, made without a knowledge of German and English, scarcely added to his reputation.[1]
When the Coimbra question arose in 1865,Garrett was dead andHerculano had ceased to write, leaving Castilho supreme, for the moment, in the realm of letters. But the youthfulAntero de Quental 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 ofJoão 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.[1]
Castilho died in Lisbon.
A club named GS Castilho based inMindelo,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.[2]
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Prestage, Edgar (1911). "Castilho, Antonio Feliciano de". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 476.| International | |
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