Luís de Ataíde Corte-Real da Silveira Estrela

Azorean poet, member of the Micaelense landed aristocracy. The surname Estrela belonged to his maternal lineage, which had managed several entailed estates and trusts since the 17th century. He was one of the largest tea producers of his time and also dedicated himself to sericulture. Furthermore, he held several elected positions, including that of procurator for the municipality of Ribeira Grande to the first General Board of the Autonomous District of Ponta Delgada (1896), presided over by Ernesto do Canto and with Aristides da Mota, one of the most prominent champions of the Azorean autonomist cause, as vice-president. A compatriot and approximately the same age as Antero de Quental and Teófilo Braga, he did not, however, follow the ideas and aesthetics that both championed in Portugal, remaining, as a poet, faithful to the Romantic tradition and even honoring Castilho on the occasion of his death (1875). Nevertheless, he shared the project of an «epopeia da Humanidade» which, according to Eça de Queirós, was common among the literary youth of the time and to which Teófilo Braga subjected all his laborious poetic production. In this genre, shortly before his death, he published his only book, a vast poem of nearly 900 stanzas titled A Luz e a Sombra, Ponta Delgada, 1909. He collaborated sparingly in the local press (cf., for example, the poem «O progresso», in A Persuasão, by F. M. Supico, 1893) and left an unpublished collection of lyrics and verse romances that remains in the possession of his heirs. Separately, besides the already mentioned poem, he only printed a poem titled A Camões, on the tercentenary of the poet's death, signed «Luís d' A.», Ponta Delgada, 1880.