António Botto
Encyclopedia
António Botto was a Portuguese
aesthete and modernist poet
.
. His father earned his living as a boatman
in the Tagus
. In 1902 his family moved to the Alfama
quarter in Lisbon
, where he grew up in its typical and popular atmosphere, which would deeply influence his work. He was poorly educated and since youth he took to a series of menial jobs, among them that of a book-shop clerk which made him acquainted with many of Lisbon's men of letters. He got into civil service
as an administrative clerk in several government offices. In 1924–25 he worked in Santo António do Zaire
and Luanda
, Angola
.
wrote a provocative and encomiastic article about the book praising the author’s courage and sincerity for shamelessly singing homosexual love as a true aesthete, was there public scandal amongst the Lisbon society and Botto attained a lifelong notoriety.
Conservatives reacted and complained to the police about the work’s immorality ("Sodom
's literature") and the book was apprehended by the authorities in 1923. Catholic
college students clamored for an auto-da-fé
of Botto's book and someone even suggested the author should be hanged. Nevertheless, most artists and intellectuals, headed by Pessoa
(a close friend of Botto's and also his publisher and English translator), promptly took up his defence in several polemic articles.
Eventually, the scandal subsided, the next year the ban was lifted and until the end of his life Botto would publish several revised versions of the book. His work was applauded by people like Antonio Machado
, Miguel de Unamuno
, Camilo Pessanha
, Virginia Woolf
, Teixeira de Pascoaes, José Régio
, Luigi Pirandello
, Stefan Zweig
, Rudyard Kipling
, James Joyce
and Federico García Lorca
.
, fastidiously dressed, oval-faced, a tiny mouth with thin pursed lips, strange, scrutinizing, ironic eyes (sometimes clouded by a disturbing malicious expression) hidden by an everpresent fedora
. He had a sardonic sense of humour, a sharp, perverse and irreverent mind and tongue, and he was a brilliant and witty conversationalist. He was kind to his friends but he would become fiercely bitchy if he felt someone disliked him or didn't treat him with the unconditional admiration he felt he deserved. He also revelled in indiscrete gossiping. On that account he made a lot of enemies. Some of his contemporaries said he was frivolous, mercurial, mundane, uneducated, vindictive, a mythomaniac and, above all, terribly vain and narcissistic to the point of megalomania
. He was a regular visitor of Lisbon's popular bohemian quarters
and the docks
, enjoying the company of sailors
, a frequent image in his poems. In spite of being mainly homosexual, he had a lifelong female companion, Carminda Silva Rodrigues: "Marriage suits every handsome and decadent man", he once wrote.
for i) disobeying orders; ii) for wooing a male co-worker and addressing to him ambiguous words, denouncing tendencies condemned by the social morals; and iii) for writing and reciting verses during the working hours, disrupting discipline in the workplace. When he read the public announcement in the official gazette he was totally disheartened: "Now I'm the only acknowledged homosexual in Portugal...", he ironized.
He supported himself by writing articles, columns and criticism in newspapers, and several books, among them Os Contos de António Botto and O Livro das Crianças, a best-seller collection of short stories for children that would be officially approved as school reading in Ireland (The Children’s Book, translated by Alice Lawrence Oram). But this proved insufficient. His health was deteriorating from tertiary syphilis
(he refused to be treated) and the brilliance of his poetry was fading away. He was jeered at in cafés and cinemas by homophobes
. He was fed up with living in Portugal and in 1947 he decided to emigrate to Brazil
. To raise funds for his trip in May he gave two large poetry recitals in Lisbon and Porto
. It was a big success and he was largely praised by several artists and intellectuals, among them Amália Rodrigues
, João Villaret
and the writer Aquilino Ribeiro
. On August 17 (the day he turned 50), he and his wife sailed to Brazil.
until 1951 and then moved to Rio de Janeiro
. He survived by writing articles and columns in Portuguese and Brazilian newspapers, doing some radio shows and poetry readings in theatres, associations, clubs and, finally, cheap taverns.
He was doing badly day by day and he ended up living in utter misery (sometimes he fed on flour mixed with water). His megalomania
(due to syphilis) was rampant and he told delirious, outlandish stories of being visited in Lisbon by André Gide
("If it was not him then it was Marcel Proust
..."), of being the greatest living poet in the world and that he was the owner of São Paulo
. In 1954 he asked to be repatriated
but he gave up because he lacked the money for the trip. (For that purpose he even tried to be in the good graces of Cardinal Cerejeira
, writing the lyrics of Avé de Fátima, Our Lady of Fátima
's now most popular hymn.) In 1956 he fell seriously ill and was hospitalised for a time.
On March 4, 1959, while crossing the Copacabana Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, he was run over by a car. He died on March 16, 1959, around 5:00 pm, in the Hospital da Beneficiência Portuguesa. In 1966 his remains were transferred to Lisbon and since November 11 they are buried in the Alto de São João cemetery.
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
aesthete and modernist poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
.
Early life
António Thomaz Botto was born at 8:00 a.m. to Maria Pires Agudo and Francisco Thomaz Botto, near AbrantesAbrantes
Abrantes is a municipality in Portugal, with a population of 41,560 inhabitants, located on the southern margin of the Tagus River.-History:...
. His father earned his living as a boatman
Boatman
-Insects:* Lesser water boatman, a water-dwelling insect* Water boatman , types of insect-People named Boatman:* Barny Boatman , English professional poker player* Michael Boatman , American actor...
in the Tagus
Tagus
The Tagus is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula. It is long, in Spain, along the border between Portugal and Spain and in Portugal, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Lisbon. It drains an area of . The Tagus is highly utilized for most of its course...
. In 1902 his family moved to the Alfama
Alfama
Alfama is the oldest district of Lisbon, spreading on the slope between the Castle of Lisbon and the Tejo river. Its name comes from the Arabic Al-hamma, meaning fountains or baths...
quarter in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, where he grew up in its typical and popular atmosphere, which would deeply influence his work. He was poorly educated and since youth he took to a series of menial jobs, among them that of a book-shop clerk which made him acquainted with many of Lisbon's men of letters. He got into civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
as an administrative clerk in several government offices. In 1924–25 he worked in Santo António do Zaire
Soyo
Soyo is a city located in the province of Zaire in Angola. Soyo recently became the largest oil-producing region in the country, with an estimate of .-Early history:...
and Luanda
Luanda
Luanda, formerly named São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda, is the capital and largest city of Angola. Located on Angola's coast with the Atlantic Ocean, Luanda is both Angola's chief seaport and its administrative center. It has a population of at least 5 million...
, Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
.
The scandal of Canções
His first book of poems Trovas was published in 1917. It was followed by Cantigas de Saudade (1918) and Cantares (1919). Canções (Songs) was published in 1920 and went unnoticed. Only when the 2nd edition was printed in 1922, and Fernando PessoaFernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
wrote a provocative and encomiastic article about the book praising the author’s courage and sincerity for shamelessly singing homosexual love as a true aesthete, was there public scandal amongst the Lisbon society and Botto attained a lifelong notoriety.
Conservatives reacted and complained to the police about the work’s immorality ("Sodom
Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
's literature") and the book was apprehended by the authorities in 1923. Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
college students clamored for an auto-da-fé
Auto-da-fé
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed...
of Botto's book and someone even suggested the author should be hanged. Nevertheless, most artists and intellectuals, headed by Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
(a close friend of Botto's and also his publisher and English translator), promptly took up his defence in several polemic articles.
Eventually, the scandal subsided, the next year the ban was lifted and until the end of his life Botto would publish several revised versions of the book. His work was applauded by people like Antonio Machado
Antonio Machado
Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....
, Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...
, Camilo Pessanha
Camilo Pessanha
Camilo Pessanha was a Portuguese symbolist poet.-Early years:Camilo de Almeida Pessanha was born the illegitimate son of Francisco António de Almeida Pessanha, an aristocratic law student, and Maria do Espírito Santo Duarte Nunes Pereira, his housekeeper, on September 7, 1867, at 11.00 p.m., in Sé...
, Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, Teixeira de Pascoaes, José Régio
José Régio
José Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...
, Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
, Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
, Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
.
Personality
Botto was somewhat of a character. He is described as a slender, medium-height dandyDandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
, fastidiously dressed, oval-faced, a tiny mouth with thin pursed lips, strange, scrutinizing, ironic eyes (sometimes clouded by a disturbing malicious expression) hidden by an everpresent fedora
Fedora (hat)
A fedora is a men's felt hat. In reality, "fedora" describes most any men's hat that does not already have another name; quite a few fedoras have famous names of their own including the famous Trilby....
. He had a sardonic sense of humour, a sharp, perverse and irreverent mind and tongue, and he was a brilliant and witty conversationalist. He was kind to his friends but he would become fiercely bitchy if he felt someone disliked him or didn't treat him with the unconditional admiration he felt he deserved. He also revelled in indiscrete gossiping. On that account he made a lot of enemies. Some of his contemporaries said he was frivolous, mercurial, mundane, uneducated, vindictive, a mythomaniac and, above all, terribly vain and narcissistic to the point of megalomania
Megalomania
Megalomania is a psycho-pathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, or omnipotence. 'Megalomania is characterized by an inflated sense of self-esteem and overestimation by persons of their powers and beliefs'...
. He was a regular visitor of Lisbon's popular bohemian quarters
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
and the docks
Dock (maritime)
A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...
, enjoying the company of sailors
Sailors
Sailors is the plural form of Sailor, or mariner.Sailors may also refer to:*Sailors , a 1964 Swedish film*Ken Sailors , American basketball playerSports teams*Erie Sailors, baseball teams in Pennsylvania, USA...
, a frequent image in his poems. In spite of being mainly homosexual, he had a lifelong female companion, Carminda Silva Rodrigues: "Marriage suits every handsome and decadent man", he once wrote.
Expelled from job
On November 9, 1942 Botto was expelled from the civil serviceCivil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
for i) disobeying orders; ii) for wooing a male co-worker and addressing to him ambiguous words, denouncing tendencies condemned by the social morals; and iii) for writing and reciting verses during the working hours, disrupting discipline in the workplace. When he read the public announcement in the official gazette he was totally disheartened: "Now I'm the only acknowledged homosexual in Portugal...", he ironized.
He supported himself by writing articles, columns and criticism in newspapers, and several books, among them Os Contos de António Botto and O Livro das Crianças, a best-seller collection of short stories for children that would be officially approved as school reading in Ireland (The Children’s Book, translated by Alice Lawrence Oram). But this proved insufficient. His health was deteriorating from tertiary syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
(he refused to be treated) and the brilliance of his poetry was fading away. He was jeered at in cafés and cinemas by homophobes
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
. He was fed up with living in Portugal and in 1947 he decided to emigrate to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. To raise funds for his trip in May he gave two large poetry recitals in Lisbon and Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
. It was a big success and he was largely praised by several artists and intellectuals, among them Amália Rodrigues
Amália Rodrigues
Amália da Piedade Rodrigues, GCSE, GCIH, , also known as Amália Rodrigues was a Portuguese singer and actress.She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" and was most influential in popularizing the fado worldwide. She was one of the most important figures in the genre's development, and enjoyed a...
, João Villaret
João villaret
João Henrique Pereira Villaret was a Portuguese actor.-Filmography:*O Pai Tirano, by António Lopes Ribeiro *Inês de Castro, by Leitão de Barros *Camões, by Leitão de Barros...
and the writer Aquilino Ribeiro
Aquilino Ribeiro
Aquilino Gomes Ribeiro, ComL was a Portuguese writer and diplomat. He is considered as one of the great Portuguese novelists of the 20th century. He was nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize in 1960....
. On August 17 (the day he turned 50), he and his wife sailed to Brazil.
Later years and death
In Brazil he resided in São PauloSão Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
until 1951 and then moved to Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
. He survived by writing articles and columns in Portuguese and Brazilian newspapers, doing some radio shows and poetry readings in theatres, associations, clubs and, finally, cheap taverns.
He was doing badly day by day and he ended up living in utter misery (sometimes he fed on flour mixed with water). His megalomania
Megalomania
Megalomania is a psycho-pathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, or omnipotence. 'Megalomania is characterized by an inflated sense of self-esteem and overestimation by persons of their powers and beliefs'...
(due to syphilis) was rampant and he told delirious, outlandish stories of being visited in Lisbon by André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
("If it was not him then it was Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
..."), of being the greatest living poet in the world and that he was the owner of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
. In 1954 he asked to be repatriated
Repatriation
Repatriation is the process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...
but he gave up because he lacked the money for the trip. (For that purpose he even tried to be in the good graces of Cardinal Cerejeira
Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira
Dom Manuel II Gonçalves Cerejeira, GCC was a Portuguese cardinal, who served as cardinal-patriarch of Lisbon, from 1929 to 1971...
, writing the lyrics of Avé de Fátima, Our Lady of Fátima
Our Lady of Fatima
Our Lady of Fátima is a famous title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary as she appeared in apparitions reported by three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal. These occurred on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13...
's now most popular hymn.) In 1956 he fell seriously ill and was hospitalised for a time.
On March 4, 1959, while crossing the Copacabana Avenue, in Rio de Janeiro, he was run over by a car. He died on March 16, 1959, around 5:00 pm, in the Hospital da Beneficiência Portuguesa. In 1966 his remains were transferred to Lisbon and since November 11 they are buried in the Alto de São João cemetery.
Further reading (chronological order)
- Pessoa, Fernando: "António Botto e o Ideal Estético em Portugal", Contemporânea, nº 3, July–September 1922.
- Maia, Álvaro: "Literatura de Sodoma - o Senhor Fernando Pessoa e o Ideal Estético em Portugal", Contemporânea, nº 4, November 1922
- Leal, Raul: Sodoma Divinizada (Leves reflexões teometafísicas sobre um artigo), February 1923
- Liga de Acção dos Estudantes de Lisboa: Manifesto dos Estudantes das Escolas Superiores de Lisboa, March 1923
- Campos, Álvaro de (Fernando Pessoa): Aviso por Causa da Moral, March 1923
- Leal, Raul: Uma Lição de Moral aos Estudantes de Lisboa e o Descaramento da Igreja Católica, March 1923
- Pessoa, Fernando: Sobre um Manifesto dos Estudantes, March 1923
- Régio, José: "António Botto", Presença, nº 13, June 13, 1928.
- Simões, João Gaspar: "António Botto e o problema da Sinceridade", Presença, nº 24, January 1930
- Régio, José: "O poeta António Botto e o seu novo livro Ciúme", Diário de Lisboa, July 21, 1934
- Colaço, Tomás Ribeiro: "António Botto - um poeta que não existe", Fradique, July 26, 1934 (a polemic ensues with José Régio until March 1935)
- Régio, José: António Botto e o Amor, 1938
- Régio, José: "Evocando um Poeta", Diário de Notícias, September 19, 1957
- Rodrigues, José Maria: "A verdade sobre António Botto", Século Ilustrado, March 21, 19 (last interview with A. Botto)
- Simões, João Gaspar: Vida e Obra de Fernando Pessoa, Lisboa, 1950
- Simões, João Gaspar: Retratos de Poetas que Conheci, Brasília Editora, Porto, 1974
- Almeida, L.P. Moitinho de: Fernando Pessoa no cinquentenário da sua morte, Coimbra Editora, Coimbra, 1985
- Cesariny, Mário: O Virgem Negra, Assírio e Alvim, Lisboa, 1989
- Leal, Raul: Sodoma Divinizada (antologia de textos organizada por Aníbal Fernandes), Hiena Editora, Lisboa, 1989
- "António Botto, Cem Anos de Maldição" (a dossier about Botto by several authors on celebration of his 100th anniversary), JL - Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias, nº 699, July 30-August 12, 1997, Lisboa.
- Sales, António Augusto: António Botto - Real e Imaginário, Livros do Brasil, Lisboa, 1997
- Fernandes, Maria da Conceição: António Botto - um Poeta de Lisboa - Vida e Obra. Novas Contribuições, Minerva, Lisboa, 1998
- Amaro, Luís: António Botto - 1897-1959 (Catálogo), Biblioteca Nacional, Lisboa, 1999
- Dacosta, Fernando: Máscaras de Salazar, Casa das Letras, Lisboa, 2006
- Almeida, São José: Homossexuais no Estado Novo, Sextante, Lisboa, 2010