Abílio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro was the most popular poet of his time. Nineteenth-century critics praised the visual strength of his work and the elaboration of his rhetoric. His poetry incorporated realist-naturalist, scientific, and socialist projects with the Romantic, Christian influences of his childhood. He was considered the apostle of the masses and prophet in verse of the Republic. From an artistic point of view, his detractors saw his work as an empty and contradictory rhetoric, unskillful, and simply echoing the topics of the times. He was the target of important criticism, initiated by António Sérgio in 1920, who criticized his "histeria romantesca" (romanesque hysteria). His work is today seen as incoherent and a prisoner of its time, and he is considered by some to be a minor poet in the Portuguese literary canon.

Junqueiro was born on 15 September 1850 to a traditional and religious...