Garrett's popular narrative poems still constitute an important reference for themes from oral literary tradition and folklore. Finally, the conception of love and sexual desire in his lyric poems became the dominant one in Portuguese literature throughout the nineteenth century. His commitment to the truths of Christianity and liberalism appears throughout all his works.
João Leitão da Silva was born on 4 February 1799 in Porto. He was the second son of the five children--four boys and a girl--of António Bernardo da Silva and Ana Augusta de Almeida Leitão. His father worked at the Porto customhouse and was responsible for supervising the application of lead stamps on goods. In 1804 the family moved to Quinta do Castelo, south of the Douro River. Quinta do Sardão, the estate of his maternal grandmother, was a few kilometers away. Da Silva spent his childhood between these two places and refers to them in his works.
In 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte's troops, commanded by Andoche Junot, invaded Portugal, and King João VI and his court moved to Brazil. In 1808 António da Silva took his family to his native town, Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira Island in the Azores.
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