Title  Emigration between continents in Eça de Queiroz: from consular correspondence to literary work
Author  Elina Maria Correia Batista 
Supervisors  Luísa Maria Soeiro Marinho Antunes Paolinelli and Alberto Vieira
Year  2012
Institution  University of Madeira
Degree  PhD
Area  Literature, specializing in cultural studies
Keywords  Eça de Queiroz, emigration, art, consular correspondence, American dream, the Brazilian
URI  http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/664

Abstract

In the last three decades of the 19th century, given the state of decline felt in the country, Eça de Queiroz, fully integrated into the bustling and effervescent environment of his generation, compares the situation of Portugal with that of Greece, countries he considers chaotic, given the routine and unimaginative policies that do not lead the country to development and progress. In fact, Portugal is unable to keep pace with other European countries and is forcing the Portuguese to emigrate. The main characteristic of his writing is irony, close to the Socratic position, a weapon of intellectual intervention, of an ethical nature, binding and liberating, which allows him to intervene and purify the problems of his time, seeking to build a Portugal as he believed it should be. During the course of his life, which included the publication of As Farpas and Uma Campanha Alegre, and in his correspondence and literary work, Eça de Queiroz questioned the "American dream", which many Portuguese wanted to experience, and the Brazilian dream, as part of a broad critique of bourgeois society. His defense of changing the course of Portuguese emigration from North America to Brazil is linked to the relationship of illusion/disillusion that marks his consular experience in Havana and his travels. The thoughts of the writer and consul evolve into an understanding of emigration, like art, as one of the civilizing forces of humanity. Many of his characters move between the Old and New Worlds, one foot in and one foot out of the country, migrating for the most varied reasons, portraying their movements in his works, building an aesthetic about the country that is based on the ethics of the human values he possesses and the experience he has acquired.