Natália Correia
Encyclopedia
Natália de Oliveira Correia, GOSE, GOL
(September 13, 1923 in Fajã de Baixo
(Ponta Delgada
), São Miguel
, Azores
– March 16, 1993 in Lisbon
) was an intellectual, poet and social activist, as well as author of the official lyrics of the Hino dos Açores
, the regional anthem of Autonomous Region of the Azores
. Her work crossed various genres of Portuguese media, and collaborated with many Portuguese and international publications. A member of the Portuguese National Assembly (1980–1991), she regularly intervened politically on the side of arts and culture, in the defense of human rights and rights of women. Along with José Saramago
, Armindo Magalhães, Manuel da Fonseca
and Urbano Tavares Rodrigues
, she helped to creat the FNDC, Frente Nacional para a Defesa da Cultura (the National Front for the Defense of Culture). She was a central figure in the artistic scene, who met with peoples central to Portuguese culture and literature in the 1950s and 1960s. Here works have been translated into various languages.
, São Miguel
, a primary teacher who had a small success with writing romances, during the 1940s) and Manuel de Medeiros Correia, married in 1918. At the age of eleven, the young Natália, her older sister (Carmen de Oliveira Correia) and mother moved to Lisbon
, while their father emigrated to Brazil. She began her studies in Lisbon, and quickly found her interest in literature (publishing her first work, for children: A Grande Aventura de Um Pequeno Herói), and specifically poetry.
She continued her Arts career in drama, romance, translation, journalism, and editing, becoming familiar with the media in all its forms, as well as television. It was during her work on the program Mátria that she advocated her own special form of feminism, which flowed counter to the politically-correct format of the movement. She called it matricismo, where she showed the woman as an archetype of liberal eroticism: passionate and feminine; later her literary notions of Patria' (the nation or fatherland) and Mátria (the woman) would be extended to Fratria (fraternity).
Correia's deep affection for her native island's native beauty is demonstrated profoundly in the themes, images and symbols portrayed in her works, as well as by her affinity for the contemporary authors Antero de Quental
and Vitorino Nemésio
. She was much influenced by surrealism
, Galician-Portuguese
poetry, and mysticism
, and her works span the spectrum from poetic romanticism to satire. She worked in many different genres: poetry, essays, theater, and anthologies.
With a talent for oratory and a combative nature, she became active in the movements in opposition to the Estado Novo regime of António Oliveira Salazar, participating in the Movimento de Unidade Democrática (Movement for Democratic Unity) in 1945, and supporting the Presidential candidacies of Generals Norton de Matos (1949) and Humberto Delgado (1958), as well as joining the Comissão Eleitoral de Unidade Democrática (Electoral Commission of the Democratic Unity), 1969. For her activism she was condemned to three years in prison, with a suspended sentence, for the publication of her work Antologia da Poesia Portuguesa Erótica e Satírica (Anthology of Portuguese Erotic Poetry and Satire), considered offensive by the authorities in 1966. She was also tried for editorial responsibility for Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters) written by Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Velho da Costa and Maria Teresa Horta. Natália was responsible for coordinating the publications of Editora Arcádia, one of the important Portuguese editors at the time.
In 1971, with colleagues Isabel Meireles, Júlia Marenha and Helena Roseta, she started the Bar Botequim, where during the decades between 1970 and 1980 she met with a great part of the Portuguese intellectual community.
In 1980 she was elected to Parliament as a member of the PPD (Partido Popular Democrático
).
She was a friend of António Sérgio, associated with Movimento da Filosofia Portuguesa (Movement of Portuguese Philosophy), David Mourão-Ferreira, José-Augusto França, Luiz Pacheco, Almada Negreiros, Mário Cesariny, Ary dos Santos, Amália Rodrigues, Fernando Dacosta, just to name a few. An enthusiast of the café-concert scene in Portugal, she supported her friend the cross-dresser Guida Scarllaty (the actor Carlos Ferreira). Her home was also a stage for famous writers such as Henry Miller
, Graham Greene
and Ionesco.
In 1991, Correia received the Grand Prize in Poetry from the Associação Portuguesa de Escritores (Association of Portuguese Writers), for his book Sonetos Românticos (Romantic Sonnets). In the same year, she was conferred the Ordem da Liberdade (Order of Liberty); she was already the holder of the Ordem de Santiago (Order of St. James).
She was married four times: in 1942, to Álvaro Pereira, in 1949, to William Creighton Hyler, in 1950, to Alfredo Machado and in March 1990, to Dórdio Leal Guimarães. It was Alfredo Luiz Machado (1904–1989), her "great passion", much older and a widower that marked her personal life (the love letters from the youthful Carreira to the much older Machado are themselves literary). Her 1990 marriage to Dórdio Guimarães, at 67 years of age, was much more a marriage of convenience with a collaborator and friend.
Natália Correia died in the early morning of March 16, 1993 in Lisbon, of a heart-attack after returning from the Bar Botequim. In her will, the Azorean bequeathed many of her possessions to the Autonomous Region of the Azores; a permanent exposition in the Public Library and Regional Archive in Ponta Delgada celebrates her literary history. The institution holds many of her literary works (which it shares with the National Library of Lisbon), including many unedited volumes, biographical documents, iconography and correspondence, as well as many works of art her private library.
Order of Liberty
The Order of Liberty, or Freedom, is a Portuguese honorific civil order that distinguishes relevant services to the cause of democracy and freedom, in the defense of the values of civilization and human dignification...
(September 13, 1923 in Fajã de Baixo
Fajã de Baixo
Fajã de Baixo is a civil parish in the municipality of Ponta Delgada in the Portuguese Azores. The population in 2001 was 4553, its density is 1121.42/km² and the area is 4.06 km². Faja de Baixo is surrounded by mountains. It is located in the western part of the island of São Miguel and is...
(Ponta Delgada
Ponta Delgada
Ponta Delgada is a city and municipality on the island of São Miguel in the archipelago of the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal. It includes 44,403 residents in the urban area, and approximately 20,113 inhabitants in the three central parishes that comprise the historical city: São Pedro,...
), São Miguel
São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island , nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. The island covers and has around 140,000 inhabitants, 45,000 of these people located in the largest city in the archipelago: Ponta Delgada.-History:In 1427, São Miguel...
, Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
– March 16, 1993 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...
) was an intellectual, poet and social activist, as well as author of the official lyrics of the Hino dos Açores
Hino dos Açores
The Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal, has its own, unofficial regional anthem: the Hino dos Açores .-History:The original song was composed by Joaquim Lima, a musician and director, of the Philharmonic Band of Rabo de Peixe, the Filarmónica Progresso do Norte, in the 1890s, when a movement...
, the regional anthem of Autonomous Region of the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. Her work crossed various genres of Portuguese media, and collaborated with many Portuguese and international publications. A member of the Portuguese National Assembly (1980–1991), she regularly intervened politically on the side of arts and culture, in the defense of human rights and rights of women. Along with José Saramago
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as "a...
, Armindo Magalhães, Manuel da Fonseca
Manuel da Fonseca
Manuel Lopes Fonseca, better known as Manuel da Fonseca was a Portuguese writer....
and Urbano Tavares Rodrigues
Urbano Tavares Rodrigues
Urbano Tavares Rodrigues, GCIH is a Portuguese professor of literature, a literary critic and a fiction writer, winner of many literary prizes. He was born in 1923 in Lisbon, Portugal, but spent most of his childhood near Moura, in Alentejo, the Southern region of Portugal...
, she helped to creat the FNDC, Frente Nacional para a Defesa da Cultura (the National Front for the Defense of Culture). She was a central figure in the artistic scene, who met with peoples central to Portuguese culture and literature in the 1950s and 1960s. Here works have been translated into various languages.
Biography
Natália Correia was the daughter of Maria José de Oliveira (born in CapelasCapelas
Capelas is a civil parish along the northern coast of the municipality of Ponta Delgada, on the island of São Miguel in the Portuguese Azores...
, São Miguel
São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island , nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. The island covers and has around 140,000 inhabitants, 45,000 of these people located in the largest city in the archipelago: Ponta Delgada.-History:In 1427, São Miguel...
, a primary teacher who had a small success with writing romances, during the 1940s) and Manuel de Medeiros Correia, married in 1918. At the age of eleven, the young Natália, her older sister (Carmen de Oliveira Correia) and mother moved to 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...
, while their father emigrated to Brazil. She began her studies in Lisbon, and quickly found her interest in literature (publishing her first work, for children: A Grande Aventura de Um Pequeno Herói), and specifically poetry.
She continued her Arts career in drama, romance, translation, journalism, and editing, becoming familiar with the media in all its forms, as well as television. It was during her work on the program Mátria that she advocated her own special form of feminism, which flowed counter to the politically-correct format of the movement. She called it matricismo, where she showed the woman as an archetype of liberal eroticism: passionate and feminine; later her literary notions of Patria' (the nation or fatherland) and Mátria (the woman) would be extended to Fratria (fraternity).
Correia's deep affection for her native island's native beauty is demonstrated profoundly in the themes, images and symbols portrayed in her works, as well as by her affinity for the contemporary authors Antero de Quental
Antero de Quental
Antero Tarquínio de Quental , old spelling Anthero, , a Portuguese poet, philosopher and writer, whose works became a milestone in the Portuguese language, alongside those of Camões or Bocage....
and Vitorino Nemésio
Vitorino Nemésio
Vitorino Nemésio Mendes Pinheiro da Silva was a poet, author and intellectual from Terceira, Azores, best known for his romance Mau Tempo No Canal, as well as being a professor in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon and member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon...
. She was much influenced by surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese or Old Portuguese was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was first spoken in the area bounded in the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River in the south but it was later extended south...
poetry, and mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, and her works span the spectrum from poetic romanticism to satire. She worked in many different genres: poetry, essays, theater, and anthologies.
With a talent for oratory and a combative nature, she became active in the movements in opposition to the Estado Novo regime of António Oliveira Salazar, participating in the Movimento de Unidade Democrática (Movement for Democratic Unity) in 1945, and supporting the Presidential candidacies of Generals Norton de Matos (1949) and Humberto Delgado (1958), as well as joining the Comissão Eleitoral de Unidade Democrática (Electoral Commission of the Democratic Unity), 1969. For her activism she was condemned to three years in prison, with a suspended sentence, for the publication of her work Antologia da Poesia Portuguesa Erótica e Satírica (Anthology of Portuguese Erotic Poetry and Satire), considered offensive by the authorities in 1966. She was also tried for editorial responsibility for Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters) written by Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Velho da Costa and Maria Teresa Horta. Natália was responsible for coordinating the publications of Editora Arcádia, one of the important Portuguese editors at the time.
In 1971, with colleagues Isabel Meireles, Júlia Marenha and Helena Roseta, she started the Bar Botequim, where during the decades between 1970 and 1980 she met with a great part of the Portuguese intellectual community.
In 1980 she was elected to Parliament as a member of the PPD (Partido Popular Democrático
Social Democratic Party (Portugal)
The Social Democratic Party , is a centre-right liberal conservative political party in Portugal. It is commonly known by its initials, PSD; on ballot papers, its initials appear as PPD/PSD, with the first three letters coming from the party's original name, Democratic People's Party...
).
She was a friend of António Sérgio, associated with Movimento da Filosofia Portuguesa (Movement of Portuguese Philosophy), David Mourão-Ferreira, José-Augusto França, Luiz Pacheco, Almada Negreiros, Mário Cesariny, Ary dos Santos, Amália Rodrigues, Fernando Dacosta, just to name a few. An enthusiast of the café-concert scene in Portugal, she supported her friend the cross-dresser Guida Scarllaty (the actor Carlos Ferreira). Her home was also a stage for famous writers such as Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
, Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
and Ionesco.
In 1991, Correia received the Grand Prize in Poetry from the Associação Portuguesa de Escritores (Association of Portuguese Writers), for his book Sonetos Românticos (Romantic Sonnets). In the same year, she was conferred the Ordem da Liberdade (Order of Liberty); she was already the holder of the Ordem de Santiago (Order of St. James).
She was married four times: in 1942, to Álvaro Pereira, in 1949, to William Creighton Hyler, in 1950, to Alfredo Machado and in March 1990, to Dórdio Leal Guimarães. It was Alfredo Luiz Machado (1904–1989), her "great passion", much older and a widower that marked her personal life (the love letters from the youthful Carreira to the much older Machado are themselves literary). Her 1990 marriage to Dórdio Guimarães, at 67 years of age, was much more a marriage of convenience with a collaborator and friend.
Natália Correia died in the early morning of March 16, 1993 in Lisbon, of a heart-attack after returning from the Bar Botequim. In her will, the Azorean bequeathed many of her possessions to the Autonomous Region of the Azores; a permanent exposition in the Public Library and Regional Archive in Ponta Delgada celebrates her literary history. The institution holds many of her literary works (which it shares with the National Library of Lisbon), including many unedited volumes, biographical documents, iconography and correspondence, as well as many works of art her private library.
Literature
- Grandes Aventuras de um Pequeno Herói (=Great Adventures of A Little Hero) (infantile romance), 1945
- Anoiteceu no Bairro (romance), 1946 ; 2004
- Rio de Nuvens (poem), 1947
- Descobri Que Era Europeia: impressões duma viagem à América, 1951 ; 2002
- Sucubina ou a Teoria do Chapéu (theatrical), with Manuel de Lima, 1952
- Poemas = Poems (poem), 1955
- Dimensão Encontrada (poem), 1957
- O Progresso de Édipo (dramatic poem), 1957
- Passaporte = Passport (poem), 1958
- Poesia de Arte e Realismo Poético (Art Poems and Poetic Realisms) (essay), 1959
- Comunicação = Communication (dramatic poem), 1959
- Cântico do País Emerso (poem), 1961
- A Questão Académica de 1907 (An Academic Question of 1907) (essay), 1962
- Antologia de Poesia Portuguesa Erótica e Satírica: dos cancioneiros medievais à actualidade (anthology), 1965 ; 2000
- O Homúnculo, tragédia jocosa (theatrical), 1965
- Mátria (poem), 1967 a
- A Madona (romance), 1968 ; 2000
- O Encoberto (theatrical), 1969 ; 1977
- O Vinho e a Lira (poem), 1969
- Cantares dos Trovadores Galego-Portugueses (anthology), 1970 ; 1998
- As Maçãs de Orestes (poem), 1970
- Trovas de D. Dinis, [Trobas d'el Rey D. Denis] (poem), 1970
- A Mosca Iluminada (poem), 1972
- O Surrealismo na Poesia Portuguesa (The Surrealism in Portuguese Poetry) (anthology), 1973 ; 2002
- A Mulher, antologia poética (anthology), 1973
- O Anjo do Ocidente à Entrada do Ferro (poem), 197llc3
- Uma Estátua para Herodes (Ensaio), 1974
- Poemas a Rebate, (poem), 1975
- Epístola aos Iamitas (poem), 1976
- Não Percas a Rosa. Diário e algo mais (25 de Abril de 1974 - 20 de Dezembro de 1975) (diary), 1978 ; 2003
- O Dilúvio e a Pomba (poem), 1979
- Erros Meus, Má Fortuna, Amor Ardente (theatrical), 1981 ; 1991
- Antologia de Poesia do Período Barroco (Poetic Anthology of the Baroque Period) (anthology), 1982
- Notas para uma Introdução às Cantigas de Escárnio e de Mal-Dizer Galego-Portuguesas (essay), 1982
- A Ilha de Sam Nunca: atlantismo e insularidade na poesia de António de Sousa (anthology), 1982
- A Ilha de Circe (Circe's Island) (romance), 1983 ; 2001
- A Pécora, peça escrita em 1967 (theatrical), 1983 ; 1990
- O Armistício (poem) = The Armistice, 1985 a
- Onde está o Menino Jesus? , 1987
- Somos Todos Hispanos (essay), 1988 ; 2003
- Sonetos Românticos (Romantic Sonnets) (poem), 1990 ; 1991
- As Núpcias (Romance), 1992
- O Sol nas Noites e o Luar nos Dias (The Sun in the Nights And The Moon During The Days) (complete poem), 1993 ; 2000
- Memória da Sombra, versos para esculturas de António Matos (poem), 1993l
- D. João e Julieta, peça escrita em 1959 (theatrical), 1999
- A Ibericidade na Dramaturgia Portuguesa (essay), 2000
- Breve História da Mulher e outros escritos (anthology), 2003
- A Estrela de Cada Um (anthology), 2004