'Os Maias': The-Maias

sábado, 19 de abril de 2008

The-Maias

** Cotações do dia 18/04/2008:

US$ 1.00	=	R$ 1.65800
£ 1.00	=	R$ 3.300753
Euro 1.00	=	R$ 2.63208
C$ 1.00	=	R$ 1.63511

Format:Trade Paperback

Published:December 1, 1998

Dimensions:640 Pages, 5.14 x 7.72 IN

Published By:Penguin Uk

ISBN:014044694X

From Our Editors

The Maias is a classic piece of literature from Portugal’s most acclaimed novelist of the 19th century, Eca de Queiros. The story is a family saga, detailing three generations of unraveling morals and fortunes, with an incestuous relationship that shocked readers when first published. Patricia McGowan Pinheiro and Ann Stevens translated the Penguin Classic edition.

From the Publisher

Eca de Queiros was Portugal's greatest nineteenth-century novelist, whose works brilliantly evoke -- and condemn -- the rapidly changing society of his times. The Maias (1888) depicts the declining fortunes of a landowning family over three generations as they are gradually undermined by hypocrisy, complacency, and sexual license. With a vivid, comprehensive portrayal of nineteenth-century Portuguese politics and social history, Eca creates a kind of comedie humaine that, despite the force of …+ read moreEca de Queiros was Portugal's greatest nineteenth-century novelist, whose works brilliantly evoke -- and condemn -- the rapidly changing society of his times. The Maias (1888) depicts the declining fortunes of a landowning family over three generations as they are gradually undermined by hypocrisy, complacency, and sexual license. With a vivid, comprehensive portrayal of nineteenth-century Portuguese politics and social history, Eca creates a kind of comedie humaine that, despite the force of its social satire and its damning critique of the Portugal from which he had exiled himself, is a supreme work of humor and irony.

The author was a diplomat who traveled widely, and although he claimed to be an apostle of naturalist realism, he reveals with detached irony the lethargy and decadence of his native land. The book initially attracted attention through its account of an incestuous romance, yet today we can see this as just one element in a novel whose compelling story, depth of thought, and compassion make it one of Europe's great literary masterpieces

About the Author

Eca de Queiros was unquestionably Portugal's greatest novelist. Beginning his career in the 1860s as a journalist, he became a constant literary innovator. He participated in the realist-naturalist revolt against the era's dominant romantics, headed by the poet Antonio Felicano de Castilho. The revolt's two main manifestations were the Coimbra Controversy of 1865 (A Questao Coimbra) and the Democratic Speeches at the Lisbon Casino in 1871. With The Sin of Father Amaro (1876) Eca de Queiros …+ read moreEca de Queiros was unquestionably Portugal's greatest novelist. Beginning his career in the 1860s as a journalist, he became a constant literary innovator. He participated in the realist-naturalist revolt against the era's dominant romantics, headed by the poet Antonio Felicano de Castilho. The revolt's two main manifestations were the Coimbra Controversy of 1865 (A Questao Coimbra) and the Democratic Speeches at the Lisbon Casino in 1871. With The Sin of Father Amaro (1876) Eca de Queiros introduced realistic and naturalistic techniques into Portuguese fiction. Set in Leiria, this is a long, tedious novel about provincial life, pettiness, ignorance, and corrupt clergy. Much of its detail comes from Eca's experience in Leiria as a low-level bureaucrat. His second novel, Cousin Bazilio (1878), is Madame Bovary set in Lisbon. The Maias (1888) is his greatest work, a final attempt to create a Portuguese Human Comedy. Although critics have focused on Eca's social criticism and protest, he was, as well, an "imaginative, critical, and witty observer of the people" (Guerra da Cal). Another side of Eca de Queiros appears in The Mandarin (1880), The Relic (1886), The Illustrious House of Ramires and The City and the Mountains (1901). All but the third have humor, fantasy, wit, social criticism, and didactic purposes in common. The first two books tell the reader that honesty, frankness, hard work, and courage are the keys to happiness and success. The City and the Mountains advocates a return of the educated upper class to the soil, to regenerate, in a paternalistic fashion, a national dynamic among the folk. The protagonist of The Illustrious House of Ramires ransoms his family's prestige through colonial enterprise. It must be remembered that the last two novels were written after the humiliating ultimatum delivered by Great Britain in 1890, which forced Portugal to give up its claim to the central African territory between Angola and Mozambique.