José Duro

Dying at 24 years old, José Duro led the erratic and bohemian life of so many of Baudelaire's heirs, frequenting cafés and literary gatherings, reading Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Cesário Verde, Junqueiro, and António Nobre, among others. He attended, probably without great conviction, the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa. In 1896, he discreetly appeared in literature with the publication of a small chapbook he titled Flores, not yet showing the dimension of the poet he would become, but already revealing his "sad muse" as Albino Forjaz de Sampaio called it. In 1898, shortly before his death (which would occur in early January 1899), José Duro still had the opportunity to see his only book, Fel, fresh from the printing press. Although showing the strong influence of the worlds of Poe, Baudelaire, Cesário, and the author's own life and illness (José Duro died of tuberculosis), the small volume, obsessively delving into the world of disease, decadence, and death, strikes us with an accent of acute and sincere anguish and despair. Duro, observed Santos Tavares, "is the poet of feeling turned mold, of sorrow made into gall, of hope lived in dread, of supplication burning with rage, of the poisonous flower, of the impure kiss, poet of catastrophe, of passion-misfortune, of nostalgia-despair," also the herald of a "youth without dawns." Opinions about him diverge, from those who, like Albino Forjaz de Sampaio, consider him "as great as António Nobre, Cesário Verde," to those who deny him any originality and importance. The truth must lie somewhere between these two extremes. Struck down very early by tuberculosis, his undeniable talent, with a marked eschatological tendency (et pour cause!), did not have time to mature towards greater refinement. As it stands, Fel is, at least, a human document of undeniable poignancy. In 1985, António Ventura collected Páginas Desconhecidas de José Duro in a volume in Portalegre.