Alexandre Herculano
1810–1877
Biography
Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araújo (1810–1877) was a Portuguese novelist, historian, poet and journalist of the Romantic period, born in Lisbon. As a young man he opposed the absolute rule of King Miguel, and after a failed uprising in 1831 he fled into exile in England and France. He then joined the liberal expedition to Terceira island and took part in the long siege of Porto. Afterwards he turned to letters: in 1837 he founded the magazine Panorama, and in the same year he became royal librarian at the Ajuda Palace.
He brought the historical novel to Portugal in the 1840s, in imitation of Walter Scott, though critics have found his style heavier than Scott's and his dialogue weaker. Eurico, o presbytero (1844) is set as the Visigothic kingdom falls to the Moorish invasion of 711; a companion piece, O Monge de Cister, followed in 1848. His major work was a History of Portugal, begun in 1846 and based on documents, which provoked a long quarrel with the clergy over the battle of Ourique. His later History of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal (1854–1855) was equally contentious.
Eurico, o presbytero is on this site: a Visigothic warrior who becomes a priest after the woman he loves is denied to him, and who is pulled back into battle when the Moorish armies cross into the peninsula. O Bobo, one of his early historical tales, is the other title here. Herculano is remembered as the writer who introduced the historical novel to Portugal and then insisted that its historians answer to the evidence.
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Books
Eurico, o presbytero
by Alexandre Herculano
Eurico, a Visigothic warrior who became a priest after he was refused the woman he loved, lives in retreat as the Moorish invasion of 711 sweeps into the Iberian peninsula. Alexandre Herculano's historical romance follows him back into battle. This book contains scenes of…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.O Bobo
by Alexandre Herculano
After the death of Afonso VI of León the barons of the peninsula quarrel over the succession, and the young Afonso Henriques is about to take on the Portuguese lands of his mother, Countess Teresa. Herculano's historical novel sees these events through the court jester of the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.