Espanca, Florbela (1894–1930)

Portuguese poet and short-story writer who is generally regarded as Portugal's foremost woman poet. Name variations: Florbela de Alma da Conceiçåo Espanca. Born in December 1894 in Vila Viçosa, Portugal; died in Matosinhos, Portugal, on December 7, 1930; married three times.

Born out of wedlock in 1894 into the provincial world of the town of Vila Viçosa in Portugal's Alto Alentejo province, Florbela Espanca lived life with an intensity that many of her contemporaries regarded as flagrantly reckless. Already divorced from the first of her three husbands at age 18, Espanca poured her emotions into lyric verse and short stories strongly influenced by the decadent symbolist literature popular at that time; these early works would be published posthumously in 1931. By 1917, she was in Lisbon, where she studied law and married a second time. In 1919, Espanca's first book of poems, Livro de mágoas (Book of Woes), was published and was little noticed by critics. Although they revealed Espanca's considerable talent, these poems also showed the influence of her mentor, Antonio Nobre. Her second marriage was as troubled as the first, and despite her personal unhappiness she marked her 1923 divorce with the publication of a second book of verse. This volume, Livro de Sóror Saudade (Book of Sister Saudade), has as its title the name given Espanca by a friend and fellow poet, Américo Durão.

Like her first book, Livro de Sóror Saudade received minimal attention from literary critics. This time, however, it was because the volume boldly challenged the puritanism and patriarchy of a deeply conservative society. In her verse, she chose to reveal many aspects of her sexuality and her desire for personal freedom, subjects considered profoundly "improper" by the literary powers of Portugal and its social, economic and ecclesiastical oligarchs. By challenging the assumptions of patriarchy and machismo in the strongest terms, Espanca declared war on a world that expected women to live in their own limited spheres of home, family and church. Her erotic poetry as well as a private life seen by many as immoral marked her as a sworn enemy of the conservative values of traditional Portugal.

Considered decadent in her works and life, Espanca shocked the bourgeoisie of the city of Porto and the small town of Matosinhos, where she lived after returning from Lisbon. Many who neither read her books nor met her in person came to regard Espanca as a threat to public decency and as a terrifying example of a younger generation's lack of restraint. Poets and connoisseurs of contemporary literature, however, began to read and admire her books and looked upon her erotic poetry as opening new insights into human experience. Some of Portugal's small contingent of feminists were impressed by the intensity and clarity of Florbela Espanca's writings, seeing her as a writer determined to grapple directly with the problems of being a woman and an artist in a society unsympathetic to both women's rights and the idea of artistic freedom.

Still seeking happiness and stability in her personal life, Espanca had married for a third time in 1930 and was busy preparing two manuscripts of poetry and short stories for publication when she died in Matosinhos on December 7, 1930. She succumbed to an overdose of barbiturates on the eve of her 36th birthday. At the time, she was still known more for her reputation as a "scandalous woman" than for her work as a writer. Yet within a year of her death, the publication of the two books she had been editing, Charneca em Flor (Flowering Heath) and Reliquiae (Relics), brought her passionate voice to a growing number of readers and admirers not only in Portugal, but also in Lusophone, Brazil, and (through the work of her translator and confidant Professor Guido Battelli) in Italy as well.

By the 1950s, Florbela Espanca had achieved a towering reputation as not only modern Portugal's greatest female poet, but also as one of that nation's most eloquent artistic advocates of the right of all women to seek personal freedom and happiness. She was honored by the Portuguese postal system on February 21, 1994, with the issuance of a 100 escudos postage stamp bearing her portrait.

sources:

Alonso, Claudia Pazos, and Gloria Fernandes, eds. Women, Literature, and Culture in the Portuguese-Speaking World. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.

Barge, Thomas J. "Florbela Espanca: The Limbs of a Passion," in Hispania. Vol. 73, no. 4. December 1990, pp. 978–982.

Barros, Thereza Leitao de. Escritoras de Portugal: genio feminino revelado na literatura portuguesa. 2 vols. Lisbon: [Tip. de A. O. Artur], 1924–1927.

Delgado Corral, Concepcion. "A Obra de Florbela Espanca" (Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1994).

Guedes, Rui. Florbela Espanca: Fotobiografia. Lisbon: Dom Quixote, 1985.

Hines, Samantha L. "Twentieth-Century Portuguese Women Writers: An Annotated Bibliography and Bibliometric Study of Literature" (M.A. thesis, University of Rhode Island, 1994).

Klobucka, Anna. "O Formato Mulher: As Poeticas do Feminino na Obra de Florbela Espanca, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Maria Teresa Horta e Luiza Neto Jorge" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1993).

Luis, Agustina Bessa. Florbela Espanca. Lisbon: Guimaraes Editores, 1984.

——. A Vida e a Obra de Florbela Espanca. Lisbon: Arcádia, 1979.

Maciunas, Billie. "Reading Florbela Espanca: The Imaginary of the Mother" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988).

Moises, Massaud. Literatura portuguesa moderna: guia biografico, critico e bibliografico. Sao Paulo: Editora de Universidade de Sao Paulo, 1973.

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Sena, Jorge de. Da poesia portuguesa. Lisbon: Edicoes Atica, 1959.

——. Florbela Espanca ou a Expressão do Feminino na Poesia Portuguesa. Porto: Fenianos, 1947.

The Story of Fado (Hemisphere CD 7243 8 55647 2 7).

John Haag , Assistant Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia