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Antero de Quental

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Poet

The Resume

    (April 18, 1842-September 11, 1891)
    Born in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Portugal
    Birth name was Antero Tarquínio de Quental
    Also known as Anthero de Quental
    Portuguese typographer, philosopher, writer, and poet
    Romanticist, leader in the Questão Coimbra movement; mainly penning odes and sonnets
    Founder of the Partido Socialista Português (Portuguese Socialist Party)
    Founded the newspaper, A República - Jornal da Democracia Portuguesa with Oliveira Martins (1869)
    Appointed Editor of O Pensamento Social magazine (1872)
    Works included 'Sonetos de Antero' (1861), 'Beatrice e Fiat Lux' (1863), 'Odes Modernas' (1865), 'Bom Senso e Bom Gosto' (1865), 'A Dignidade das Letras e as Literaturas Oficiais' (1865), 'Defesa da Carta Encíclica de Sua Santidade Pio IX '(1865), 'Portugal perante a Revolução de Espanha' (1868), 'Primaveras Românticas' (1872), 'Considerações sobre a Filosofia da História Literária Portuguesa' (1872), 'A Poesia na Actualidade' (1881), 'Sonetos Completos' (1886), 'A Filosofia da Natureza dos Naturistas' (1886), 'Tendências Gerais da filosofia na Segunda Metade do Século XIX' (1890), and 'Raios de extinta luz' (1892)
    Committed suicide by a double gunshot wound through the mouth

Why he might be annoying:

    He was an aristocratic socialist.
    He's virtually unknown outside of his home country.
    A great deal of his sonnets were about himself.
    He was known for being a 'doom and gloom' pessimist who dressed entirely in black.
    One of his last poems included a verse reading 'of all things, the worst is having been born.'
    He flirted with anarchism, although never committing to it completely (although he did start a literary circle of intellectuals to discuss it).
    He distributed blasphemous pamphlets in college, under the guise of a literature appreciation society.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was a child prodigy.
    He grew up in the very outskirts of Portugal, on the Azores islands.
    He studied Law at the University of Coimbra, where he developed his early socialist ideals.
    His work is a milestone in the Portuguese language (arguably the most important woks of poetry in the language).
    He adopted the two daughters of a friend who had died unexpectedly.
    He was afflicted with tuberculosis, a spinal defect, and a form of manic depression.
    Interestingly, these ailments seemed to increase the quality of his poetry and prose, bringing it to an deeper level.
    He published 'Bom Senso e Bom Gosto' as a response to critics of his social activism, asserting that poets were the 'messengers of the great ideological questions of the day,' 'in an era of great transformation.'
    This gave way to the 'Coimbra Question of 1865,' later known as 'the 70s Generation'; a direct counter movement to the Romantic poetry of the mid-1800s.
    He shot himself in the mouth in the bunk of a local garden park on which a wall read the word Esperança (Hope).
    He wrote, 'Poetry is a sincere confession of the most intimate thinking of an era.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


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Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 11 Votes: 45.45% Annoying