Júlio Dinis and History Revisited: What Good is a Dead Mother?
2003; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 19; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/port.2003.0014
ISSN2222-4270
Autores Tópico(s)Cultural, Media, and Literary Studies
ResumoJulio DinisandHistory Revisited: WhatGoodisa Dead Mother? MARIA MANUEL LISBOA History wouldbeanexcellent thing ifonly itwere true. Tolstoy Reference to JulioDinis in an academiccontext almostinvariably gives riseto a paradox: dismissalof his standing as a forgettable pedlarof adolescent literatura cor-derosaandromances piegas,iscompelled tocoexistwiththeknowledgethatsome of the mostaugustnamesin the Portuguese critical establishment - Antonio JoséSaraiva(1949), 1Oscar Lopes (1972),2 Maria LuciaLepecki(1979),3 JoäoGasparSimöes(1987),4 and inparticular LibertoCruz (1972)5- havechosento devotetimeto rescuinghis work fromthe neglectto whichit has been habitually consigned. Nonetheless, it is undeniably withintheless thanhallowed regions ofpulpfiction thaton thewholehiswriting inhabits, and when first toying withcertain ideasevokedbyhiswork,myfirst instinct was to abandonthem, muchlikea badSophoclean mother tempted toexposeher troublesome childon themountainside todie.Butlikeevery mother who hasreadherclassics, I knewthatsuchchildren havea habitofcoming back notonlyto hauntthemother, butto marry her,withwell-known and disastrous consequences. Rather thanriskthis, I decidedhubristically ona pre-emptive strike against fate, bymarrying JulioDinisatonce,oratleast clutching himtomymaternal bosom- a manoeuvre allthemoreapposite, as I shallargue,giventhetheme to be developedhere,butgivenalso the personalhistory oftheman:orphaned, unmarried, dead oftuberculosis aged thirty-two, and whoseonlyrumoured, certainly unconsummated, affair oftheheartwas histoothsome, quasi-incestuous attachment to a married cousininlocoparentis^ fourteen years olderthanhimself. JulioDinis's criticalpaladins have maintained thatfarfrombeing escapist Mills& Boontypeliterary fare, hiswriting reflects a curiousand complexmoment in thenation'sagitated politicallifein thenineteenth 1Antonio José Saraiva, 'AobradeJulio Dinize a suaépoca',Vértice: Revista deCultura eArte, 67 (1949), i?7-íi. 2ÓscarLopes,'Acrítica inintencional emJulio Dinis'inCifras do Tempo(Lisbon: Caminho (1990), pp. 3S-SO. Maria Lucia Lepecki, Komantismoe realismona obra de Julio Dinis (Lisbon: Biblioteca Breve,1979). Joäo Gaspar Simöes,PespectivaHistóricada Ficçâo Portuguesadas Origensao Seculo XX (Lisbon: DomQuixote, 1987), pp.425-39. 5Liberto Cruz, 'Julio Dinise o sentido socialdasuaobra'inColoquioLetras, 7 (1972), 31-39. JULIO DINIS AND HISTORY REVISITED 39 century, a phenomenon whichMarinade AlmeidaRibeirohas described as 'urnaimagemde esperançae a memoriamagoadade umpaís que se dividirá emdois e que demoravaa reconciliar-se'.6 This reference to the civilwar whichsweptthrough Portugal, technically between1828 and 1834, but effectively continuing until1847, identifies thatmomentin Portuguese history which,as I willargue,anchorssomeoftheimportant preoccupations whichunderwrite JulioDinis'sfournovelsandoccasional shortstories, written overa periodofjustovertenyears,from1858to 1871,within living memory ofa warwhichwas stillbeingfought whenhe wasborn. BythetimeDinisbeganwriting hisnovelsthewarhad endedand the country had embarkedupon a periodof relativepoliticaland social stability knownas Regeneraçao. Albeit internally woundedbythememory ofthecivilwarandeconomically handicapped bythelossofBrazilin1822, Portugal had entered an epochof two-party parliamentarian rotativism and infrastructural reconstruction whichon thepoliticalfront promoted low-grade cooperation insocialpolicy implementation between thetwoby now barelydistinguishable parties,and in more generalizedaspects witnessed a profound alteration in thesocio-economic landscape,both urbanand rural:changesin legislation controlling land ownership, the abolition ofthequasi-feudal lawofmorgadios, theextension ofroadsand railwaysinto the countryside, and intellectually - withinan urban context - theriseofthecultofsciencein linewiththechanging mood abroad. JulioDinis,therefore, observed, thought andwroteon thecuspoftwo eras:theold orderofan imperial, sea-faring and morerecently war-torn Portugal, andtheneworderofa nationrecently andpossibly precariously atpeace,seeking tomodernize andindustrialize alongthelinesofthenew progressive scientific and technological advancesapparentelsewhere in Europe. From the point of view of historiansand thinkers such as Alexandre Herculano(1846-53)/ and to someextent Antero de Quental (1871),8 as expounded inhisfamous lecture onthecausesofthedecadence ofthePeninsular peoples,whatboththeold and theneworderhad in common was a neglect ofthegeophysical, agricultural concreteness ofthe torräonatal,thenativesoilwhichthey saw as thebodyandbackboneof the motherland, and one literally and fatallydilutedby the nation's headlong rush toputallitseggsintothebasket oftheDescobrimentos. 6 Marina de Almeida Ribeiro,O Simbolismoda Casa em Julio Dinis (Lisbon: Difel, 1990), p. 289. 7 AlexandreHerculano,Historiade Portugal(Lisbonand Paris:LivrariasAillaudand Bertrand fn.d.l). 8 Anterode Quental,Causas da Decadencia dos PovosPeninsulares (Lisbon:Col. Ensaio, 1971). 40 MARIA MANUEL LISBOA Anatavistic attachment tothelandwhich, according toJaime Cortesäo (1979)istheidentifying characteristic ofthePortuguese, wherever imperial, colonialoremigrational drives mayhavescattered them, istheparadoxical traitof a people who have become memorablein Europeanhistory precisely fortheitchy feet thatledthem toleavethatbelovedmotherland inthepursuit ofpastures new.9 Thiscontradictory instinct simultaneously toclingto and abandon- delightful to a psychoanalytical turnofmind bentuponobserving inOedipalsonsan imperative todiscardthemother at all times countered bytherepressed desireto return toherandpossess her- becomesparticularly apt whenconsidering first, theFreudianly turbulent historical moment to whichJulioDinis dedicatedhiswriting; andsecond,a bird's-eye viewofPortuguese history ingeneral. As regards thelatter, we can contemplate whatineffect amounts to thehistory ofa country whoseOedipalbeginnings, curiously self-destructive, havehauntingly recycled themselves withpuzzlingregularity from itsorigins to the present day. In1143D. Afonso Henriques, independent Portugal's first king, stabbed theSpanishpoliticalfather againstwhomhedeclaredindependence, and droveintoexilehisownbiologicalmother from whosehandshewrested the reinsof power.This set...
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