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that advocated a new order in Portugal.
Ironically he chose ultimately to pursue his
social criticism from overseas, joining the
consular service and residing successively
in Cuba, Britain, and France. His novels,
most of which were written abroad, depict
the abuses and hypocrisies of Portuguese
aristocratic and upper-middle-class society,
particularly the influence of the Catholic
Church. In
O crime do Padre Amaro
(
The Sin
of Father Amaro,
1875) a young priest begins
an affair with a naive girl. The resulting
pregnancy ends in abortion and her death.
The character of Amaro, combined with
what Eça de Queirós regarded as the perni-
cious rule of celibacy, destroys lives in a
society that is obsessed with covering up
“scandal” and preserving reputations. A bit-
terly satirical view of the absurdities of pas-
sion pursued according to “romantic”
convention and its potentially disastrous
results shaped his next novel,
O primo Basí-
lio
(
Cousin Bazilio,
1878).
Os Maias
(
The
Maias,
1885) is generally regarded as Eça de
Queirós's finest novel. In it he presented,
with unsparing detail, the degeneration of
an elite family, whose intrigues and hypoc-
risy bring ruin upon their youngest genera-
tion. They are representative of the ruling
class whose false values and corrupt prac-
tices have brought about the decay of con-
temporary Portuguese society. These novels
established Eça de Queirós as the writer
who introduced realism and naturalism to
Portuguese literature and introduced his
country to progressive currents of thought
that had already affected the cultural life of
other parts of Europe. He was almost cer-
tainly the best-known Portuguese of his
day. Living in Paris from 1888 onward,
however, Eça de Queirós, with his affluent
lifestyle and fashionable connections,
seems to have lost faith (or, perhaps, inter-
est) in the reform movement. His last
novel,
A cidade e as serras
(
The City and the
Mountains,
1901) is more sentimental than
critical. It is the work of a writer who is
content to rhapsodize over the charm of
Portuguese rural scenery and the easy-
going ways of country living.
Echegaray y Eizaguirre, José
(1832-1916)
Spanish playwright
Successively an engineer, professor of math-
ematics, and cabinet minister, Echegaray
turned his hand to playwriting (under a
pseudonym) in 1874 with
El libro talonario
(The checkbook). During the next 30 years
the name of this already highly regarded
scientist and financier—who was chiefly
responsible for the creation of the Banco de
España—became known as that of Spain's
most successful contemporary dramatist. In
1904 his increasing reputation abroad was
confirmed by the Nobel Prize in literature,
which he shared with the Frenchman Fré-
déric Mistral. Echegaray's plays were gener-
ally melodramatic, full of charged situations
and vehement characters whose crises were
frequently resolved by suicide. He was
clearly indebted to the old romantic tradi-
tion but ventured into thesis drama from
time to time, reflecting an awareness of
Ibsen's work, for instance, without any of
the Norwegian master's subtleties. Tremen-
dously popular with Spanish audiences, he
was denounced by rivals and critics as the
author of contrived, crowd-pleasing work
that he turned out with indecent haste. It
was even rumored that his secretary fed
him a series of “catchy” titles for which
Echegaray then dictated plots and dialogue
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