Maria Browne

Poet. Married to Manuel de Clamouse Browne, a wealthy wine merchant «well known and reputable in the city's market», Maria Felicidade do Couto Brown made her home a meeting place for the most celebrated figures of the era, a kind of artistic and literary salon frequented by Arnaldo Gama, Ricardo Guimarães, Faustino Xavier de Novais, Augusto Soromenho, and the young Camilo, with whom she had at one point a romantic relationship that became the subject of gossip in the puritanical and closed Porto society of the time. Camilo dedicated to her the 1st edition of the drama O Marquês de Torres Novas (she was 49 and he was 24), and because rumours began to spread, the matron's youngest son, Ricardo, challenged the novelist to a duel from which Camilo emerged slightly wounded. It was from this atmosphere that her poetic ambitions arose, taking as models and sometimes imitating poets such as Garrett, with whom she corresponded and who dedicated some of his poems to her. The poetry of Maria da Felicidade Browne, published under the pseudonyms A Coruja Trovadora and Soror Dolores (which would serve as the titles for, respectively, the 1st and 2nd editions of her work), is steeped in the Romantic spirit and sings mainly of love—a disillusioned and passionate love, opposed to duty, in a language where clichés are at times redeemed by a tone of authenticity and a fine aesthetic sense. Her first book, A Coruja Trovadora, was never put on sale: the author distributed it to her intimates, asking them in the dedications not to let it leave their hands. Her son Ricardo planned to publish a deluxe edition of all of his mother's poetry, but eventually gave up the idea. Augusto Soromenho, in Revista Peninsular (vol. II, 1856, p. 314), calls her no less than «the foremost Portuguese female poet» and «a great genius», in an article signed under the pseudonym Abd-Allah. For Teresa Leitão de Barros, who read her carefully, «the literary value of the English merchant's wife is almost nil» (Escritoras de Portugal, 1924). It must be recognized, however, that the author's fame was perhaps due more to the aura surrounding Camilo's glory than to her actual literary gifts.