Sonetos - Bocage

Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, the most complete poet of our 18th century, was born in Setúbal in 1765 and died in Lisbon in 1805. At the age of 16 he enlisted in the Setúbal Infantry, but in 1783 he joined the Royal Naval Academy. In Lisbon, he participated in bohemian and literary life and began to gain fame for his satirical poetic vein. In 1786 he embarked for India, eventually being promoted to lieutenant; in 1789 he ventured to Macau and returned to Portugal that same year. In 1791 he published the first volume of Rimas (Rhymes) and joined the Nova Arcádia (or Academy of Fine Letters), where he received the name Elmano Sadino. But Bocage, due to his instability and irreverence, did not adapt to Arcadian conventionalism and clashed with his colleagues. In 1797 he was accused of being a "dangerous heretic and dissolute in morals"; And, as his sympathy for the French Revolution was well known, he was arrested and condemned by the Inquisition. When he was released from prison, resigned and worn down, he was forced to live by writing (especially translations). He received help from some friends but would eventually die sick and in poverty.
While Bocage's poetry is formally still neoclassical, and while some vocabulary and allegorical processes still bear the classical heritage, specifically that of Camões, its temperament, many themes (such as jealousy, night, death, egotism, freedom, love – often manifested through erotic expression), and the insistence on certain images and verbs that reveal a borderline experience, it can be said that a significant part of Bocage's poetic production is already markedly pre-Romantic, thus announcing the new era that was approaching. Despite his poetry being contradictory, irregular, and his verses revealing artistically dubious concessions, Bocage is rightly considered one of the greatest Portuguese sonnet writers.
Bocage's works are currently published in the anthologies: "Opera Omnia", "Poesias" (an anthology that includes lyric poetry, satire and erotica) and "Poesias de Bocage". © 2003 Porto Editora, Lda.