Bernardim Ribeiro
1482–1552
Biography
Bernardim Ribeiro was a Portuguese poet and prose writer of the Renaissance. He was born in Torrão, in the Alentejo region, probably around 1482. His father was involved in a conspiracy against King John II, and the family had to take refuge until the new king, Manuel I, restored them. Ribeiro studied law at the University of Lisbon and was given a royal secretarial post at court. He took part in the palace poetry evenings, and some of his early verses appear in the Cancioneiro Geral, the great anthology of court poetry.
His life was shaped by an unhappy love for his cousin, Joana Zagalo, who was married to another man and later entered a convent. The scandal that surrounded the affair cost him his post and led to his exile, and in the early 1520s he travelled in Italy. He returned to Portugal in 1524, and in his last years his health and mind declined. He died in Lisbon in 1552.
His main work is a prose romance in the pastoral style, known as Saudades or, more often, Menina e Moça after its opening words. He wrote it while abroad, and it was printed only after his death, at Ferrara in 1554. Portuguese critics often credit him with bringing the pastoral mode into Portuguese literature.
Saudades: história de menina e moça is on this site. Its story recounts an unhappy love affair in a pastoral setting, and its characters are disguised versions of people from Ribeiro's own life. The first part of the book is generally attributed to Ribeiro, while the authorship of the second part is debated. After publication, reading it was reportedly banned, because it seemed to reveal a family tragedy beneath the allegory. It remains a key text for anyone studying Renaissance prose in Portuguese.
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Books
Saudades: história de menina e moça
by Bernardim Ribeiro
A young woman withdrawn to a lonely place in the hills mourns her sorrows, and an older lady tells her stories of unhappy love among knights and shepherds. Bernardim Ribeiro's sixteenth-century pastoral romance is one of the earliest works of Portuguese prose fiction.
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.