Almeida Garrett | Biography

Scholars agree on the importance of Almeida Garrett's participation in the cultural and literary transformations in Portugal from 1820 to 1854. Garrett worked in various literary genres and produced a highly diversified body of work. In the field of epic poetry, specifically in his Camões (1825), he turned the image of sixteenth-century poet Luís de Camões into a Romantic myth of the beggar poet rather than a heroic one. In his novels Garrett not only created love stories but also mingled fiction with philosophical, aesthetic, and historical reflections. In his plays Garrett added a didactic element through his plots and characters in which the literate public of the nineteenth century could recognize their own dilemmas. In his pedagogical and historiographical essays there are two main trends: the defense of Christianity and the duty Garrett imposes on himself and his readers, along with the rest of Europe, of following the path...
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