Globalization of culture

The women written culture

Pedro Urbano (FCSH-UNL)

The Portuguese Women Writers Project, in which I have a scholarship, aims to

make the survey about the women's literary production in Portuguese between the
fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to identify the women authors, also seeks
to discover their works, as well as those for which they contributed, as it is the case of
translations or adaptations. This means that, in addition to the authors, it also received
attention the reception of works in Portugal produced in other countries. It is, therefore,
and in a historical perspective, to understand also the cultural diffusion and somewhat
the consumption habits by the reading public at the time of its production.
As part of a European network of similar projects that focus on women literary
production and reception, the dynamics of cultural production and circulation is even
more evident, effectively portraying cultural globalization, especially during the
nineteenth century.
This multinational dimension of the project allows an easier understanding of the
whole process and especially the network that is established between the various
authors. We will show some examples of this network, focusing mainly on whether the
female authorship, whether in the reception of works by the women audience.
Inevitably we start by probably the most international of all the Portuguese
women writers of the time - the Marquise de Alorna. Born in 1750 and died in 1839, she
was cloistered in the convent of Chelas only with 8 years because of family ties that
linked the Tavora family, which was implicated in the alleged assassination attempt on
King D. José. She was there for almost 20 years, 20 years where she devoted herself to
reading the great names of French literature, especially the Enlightenment philosophers.
But not only them. In 1770, she adapted to Portuguese Antoinette Deshoulieres’ Les
Moutons. Antoinette Deshoulieres was a poet, born in 1637 and died in 1694 and this
poem was about the fate of the children who lost their parents. Also adapted the English
writer Amelia Opie (1769-1853), and the poem Lays for the dead, which gave the name
Bem que tão longo e eterno amor nos ata and was included in the anthology that the
Marquise of Alorna daughters edited after the death of her mother.
She also had translated Madame de Staël, the French author most likely with
greater impact in Portugal throughout the nineteenth century. In addition to the
Marquise of Alorna, another contemporary and close friend, Francisca de Paula Possolo
da Costa, has translated two of Madame de Stael works - De l'Alemagne and Corinne ou
L'Italie. Not belonging to the aristocracy as the Marquise de Alorna, or not having
travelled through Spain and England as the Marquise did - which allowed her an easier
access to foreign works not edited in Portugal - the relations of sociability and interest
in the culture that led Francisca Possolo da Costa to open les sallons of her home will
certainly be the conditions which allowed easier access to the cultural movement.
Beyond these two writers, also the writer Claudia de Campos (1871-1916), born
in Sines, since the dawn of the twentieth century, focused attention on Madame de
Stael, and in particular, on her relationship with Pedro de Sousa Holstein, future first
Earl and Duke of Palmela, publishing the book The Baroness de Stael and the Duke of
Palmela.
After 1877, when the first original edition was published, another noble, Matilde
de Santa Ana Vasconcelos (1806-1888), born on the island of Madeira and the wife of
the first Viscount of Nogueiras, published a translation of the historical novel As
castelãs de Rossillon from the novel Les Châtelaines Roussillon or Le Quercy seizième
siècle, whose authorship was another French aristocrat, Eugenie Dutheil, Countess of
La Rochère (1810 - +?).
As can be seen in the examples we have just shown, which are the most
significant ones, we can already conclude that, firstly, it was the French culture that
seems to have a higher incidence in Portugal over nineteenth century. On the other
hand, the nobility or social groups associated with it, not only continue to be the main
consumers of literate culture, but also its main broadcasters.
Let us now analyze the impact of Portuguese culture in the world. Obviously,
much less pronounced and tend to be later in time. And they are not confined to
translations or adaptations.
 Maria Chiappe Cadet (1820-1885), teacher of French, published in 1875 a book
of poems titled Smiles and tears, dedicated to Madame Gerando. Madame Gerando is
nothing more, nothing less, than Emma Teleki (1809-1893). Born in the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, the daughter of Hungarian aristocratic families married to a French
aristocrat. She lived for years in exile, on the country of her husband. The connection
between Emma Teleki and Mary Chiappe Cadet is, most likely, the French language.
Alice Pestana, born in 1860 in Santarém married to a Spanish. She lived in
Madrid where she had a college with her husband, where she taught. In 1902 he
published the novel Desgarrada in Lisbon, which would be translated by Hermenegildo
Giner de los Rios, seven years later, in Spain, with the same title.
It was also in Spain that the story A Sonâmbula, written by Mécia Mouzinho
Albuquerque (1870-1961) was translated in 1919 and was originally published a year
earlier in Lisbon. Unlike Alice Pestana, nothing indicates that she never travelled or
even lived in the kingdom of Spain.
As we can see, the reception of Portuguese works abroad, begins to become
more significant as we move in time. Perhaps due to this chronological difference,
social actors also change, losing the aristocratic character which they have by the
beginning of the nineteen century.
Besides the bibliographic repertoires, dictionaries and printed works that are the
basis for this research project, there are other privileged sources that give us valuable
information, not only for the study of women's literature and its reception, but also for
the study of cultural diffusion itself. I refer to the family archives, public or private. For
my doctoral thesis, which I'm finishing, dedicated to the study of the Royal Family
during the reign of King Carlos (1889-1908), was necessary to make an exhaustive
documentary research in various funds, particularly in family archives, and found some
information on these matters.
As an example, reading the diary of Countess Sabugosa and Murça, D. Mariana
das Dores de Melo (1856-1952), lady-in-waiting to Queen of Queen Amelia, who
wrote, on February 15, 1897 about an afternoon spent in Alfeite, aroyal property on the
left bank of the Tagus, with the Queen Amelia (1865-151) and rest of the entourage:
"(...) After lunch, big game, shooting oranges, between Her Majesty, Isabel Ponte,
Maria de Sá. Everyone had great fun. The dresses were not in good condition. We come
then on the carriage to the pine forest which was at the left of the house, where the R.
was painted and started reading Amitié Amoureuse”1. L'amitie amoureuse is a novel
published a year earlier, in 1896, by the French writer Hermine Augustine-Eugénie of
Lecomte Nouy (1854-1915) and was a huge hit in its time, reaching the 207th edition in
1920. In 1926 there were two Portuguese editions, published in Rio de Janeiro,
translated by Fernão Neves.
But is not just about reading habits than the family archives give us information.
Also on the authors themselves. In 1814, the future Count of Vila Real, then counsellor
of the embassy in London, D. José de Sousa e Vasconcelos Botelho Mourão (1795-
1855) writes letters to his wife, D. Maria Teresa de Sousa Holstein (1786-1841) sister of
the Duke of Palmela. In one of these letters compares Madame de Stael to the Marquise
de Alorna, saying: "The Marquise never knows the means to achieve her objectives,
while Madame de Staël is much more decisive"2.
We consider with these two examples, that the family archives can provide some
relevant information with regard to cultural consumption, particularly with regard to the
written production, as well as opinions about books and authors. Although we often can
not understand how it processed the cultural movement itself, we have evidences that
this movement was facilitated in many cases by their own social contacts arising from
the life path of each of the actors, and also marked by political changes experienced in
each of the national contexts.

1
Arquivo Sabugosa, Diário da Condessa de Sabugosa, 1897, Fevereiro, 15.
2
Arquivo Rio Maior, citado em SALDANHA, António Rugeroni de, “O Arquivo RIO Maior, in ROSA,
Maria de Lurdes, org., Arquivos de Família, séculos XIII-XX: que presente, que futuro?, Lisboa, IEM;
CHAM, Caminhos romanos, 2012.