Portuguese playwright and poet. He accompanied the court, writing many plays and entertainments in both Spanish and Portuguese. He wrote on religious, national, and social themes, as well as farces, and pastoral and romantic plays, all with great lyricism and a predominantly comical spirit. Among his best-known works are Inferno, Purgatório, and Glória, and the farces Inês Pereira and Juiz da Beira.
Gil Vicente, pron.
Gil Vicente's prominence as a playwright was a result of his association with the royal court of King John II of Portugal.
The vicentine work is known as a reflexion of the changing of times and the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, making the balance from an era in which hierarchy and social order had inflexible rules to a new society where the order was starting to be subverted, by means of questioning it.
Some also identify him as a jeweller, author of the famous monstrance of Belém, and as the master of rhetoric of King Manuel I of Portugal.
Life
Place and date of birth
Although it is accepted that the most probable date for his birth may have been 1465 (Queirós Veloso), some propose the dates of 1460 (Braamcamp Freire) or between 1470 and 1475 (Brito Rebelo).
Frei Pedro de Poiares located his birth in Barcelos, but the hypothesis of it really having happened there are scarce. Pires de Lima proposed Guimarães – that theory would match the identification of Gil Vicente as a jeweller, because Guimarães was for a long time the "cradle" of many Portuguese jewellers.
Every book published about Gil Vicente is, almost every time, defender of a thesis that identifies the author as a jeweller.
Some Portuguese intellectuals discussed the issue. Camilo Castelo Branco wrote, in 1881, the document Gil Vicente, Embargos à fantasia do Sr. Teófilo Braga (Gil Vicente, embargos to the fantasy of Mr. Teófilo Braga) – the latter defended the thesis of only one person for the author and jeweller, as Camilo defended they were 2 different people. Teófilo Braga would later change his opinion after a study by Sanches de Baena, which showed the different genealogy of two individuals named Gil Vicente, even though Brito Rebelo managed to prove the historical inconsistency of these two genealogies, using documents from the Portuguese national archive, in the Tower of Tombo National Archive.
Biographical data
It is known that he married Branca Bezerra, of whom were born Gaspar (died in 1519) and Belchior (born in 1505). After widowing, he married Melícia Roiz, of whom were born Paula Vicente (1519-1576), Luís Vicente (who organized the compilation of his works) and Valéria.
It is assumed that he studied in Salamanca.
His first known work, the play in Spanish O Monólogo do vaqueiro( Monologue of the Cowherd), was acted in the rooms of Maria of Aragon, wife of the King Manuel to celebrate the birth of prince John (who would later become John III of Portugal). Gil Vicente became by then in charge of organizing events in the palace. Leonor asked the playwright the reacting of the play by the matins in Christmas, but the author, considering the occasion would require something different, wrote the Auto Pastoril Castelhano (Castilian Pastoral Auto). Gil Vicente not only wrote it but also staged and acted, using, however, the religious season in a profane perspective. Due to the interest of Queen Leonor, who would become his great protector in the years to come, Gil Vicente realized that his talent would allow him much more than just adapting the play for different occasions, even though similar.
If he really was a jeweller, he finished his masterpiece in this craft – the monstrance of Belém made for the Jerónimos Monastery – in 1506, produced with the first gold that came from Mozambique. In 1513, the master of the balance of the Casa da Moeda (House of Currency, literally – the national mint), also by the name of Gil Vicente (still not known if he is the same person), was elected by the others masters to represent them in Lisbon.
Gil Vicente would direct the commemorations in honour of Eleanor of Spain, the third wife of Manuel I, in the year of 1520, a year before he started serving John III of Portugal, achieving the status he would use to satirize the clergy and the nobility in his works, or even to address the monarch criticizing his options.
He died in an unknown place, probably in 1536.
Historical context: Portuguese theatre before Gil Vicente
The Portuguese theatre wasn't born with Gil Vicente. That myth, created by many renown authors like Garcia de Resende in his Miscelânia, or his own son, Luís Vicente, by the occasion of the first edition of the compilation of the complete works of his dad, may be justified by the undeniable importance of the author in the Iberian literary context, but it is not truthful at all, since there were already theatrical manifestations before that night of June 7 to June 8 of 1502, date of the first performance of the Auto do Vaqueiro (Monólogo do Vaqueiro, also known as Auto da Visitação).
It is during the kingdom of Sancho I of Portugal, between 1185 and 1212, that the two most ancient Portuguese actors, Bonamis and Acompaniado, did a show of "arremedilho", being paid by the King with the donation of lands. According to the Portuguese chronicles of Fernão Lopes, Gomes Eanes de Zurara, Rui de Pina or Garcia Resende, also in the Royal Courts of John I of Portugal, Afonso V of Portugal and John II of Portugal, spectacular stagings took place.
However, little is left from the dramatic texts before Gil Vicente. It is likely that Gil Vicente assisted to some of these acts.
Works
Main characteristics
Gil Vicente's works come following the popular Iberian popular and religious theatre that was already being done, in a less deep way. His son, Luís Vicente, in his first compilation of all his works, classified them as autos and mysteries (of sacred and devoted nature) and as farces, comedies and tragicomedies (of profane nature).
Gil Vicente portrayed, with a refined comicality, the Portuguese society of the 16th century, showing a sharp ability of observation by laying out the psychological profile of the characters. Severe critic of the customs, according to the maxim that would be dictated by Molière ("Ridendo castigat mores" – by laughing, the customs are punished ), Gil Vicente is also one of the most important satirical authors of the Portuguese language. Among his works, are Auto Pastoril Castelhano (Castilian Pastoral Auto) (1502), Auto dos Reis Magos (Auto of the Biblical Magi) (1503), written for Christmas celebrations, and Auto da Sibila Cassandra (Auto of the Sybil Cassandra) (1503), announcing the renaissance ideals in Portugal. His magnum opus is the satire trilogy Auto da Barca do Inferno (Auto of the Ship of Hell) (1516), Auto da Barca do Purgatório (Auto of the Ship of Purgatory) (1518) and the Auto da Barca da Glória (auto of the Ship of Glory) (1519).
The generally appointed as positive aspects of his works are the imagination and originality shows;
Some authors consider that his spontaneity, even though reflecting of an efficient way the collective feelings and expressing the criticisable reality of the society he belonged to, loses in reflexion and refinement. His religious, lyricism, of medieval nature shows influences from the Cantigas de Santa Maria (Songs of Saint Mary) and is well present, for instance, in the Auto de Mofina Mendes, in the scene of the Anunciação, or in a prayer said by Saint Augustine in the 'Auto da Alma (Auto of the Soul).
His patriotic lyricism present in Exortação da Guerra (Exhortation of the War), Auto da Fama (Auto of the Fame) or Cortes de Júpiter (Courts of Jupiter), doesn't limit itself to glorify, in a epic and proud style, the nationality: it is in fact, critical and ethically concerned, mainly in what concerns the vices born with the new economic reality, with the commerce with the East (Auto da Índia (Auto of Índia)) (see: Portuguese Empire).
Philosophical elements in the Vicentine works
The works of Gil Vicente give us a vision of the world that would look similar and would make position as a personal perspective of Platonic idealism: there are two worlds - the "First World", of the serenity and divine love, that leads to inner peace, quietness and "resplendent glory", as his letter to John III of Portugal tells; In Vicente's work, these two world are reflected in a variety of themes: in one hand, the world of the human flaws and their caricatures, without much concern with the actual or historical truth. Many authors criticize Gil Vicente's anachronisms and narration flaws (gaffes), but, for someone who considered the world a false place, those would be just some more, with no importance, not damaging the message he intended to express.
Without the characteristics of Manichaeism, which are present in theatrical plays that defend a determined vision of the world, there is, actually, a presence of a strong contrast in the scenical elements used by Gil Vicente: the light against the shadow, not in a fearce fight, but in almost friendly neighbouring. Christmas eve becomes the perfect image that congregates Gil Vicente's cosmic conception: the great darkness borders the divine glory of maternity, birth, forgiveness, serenity and good will – but without the darkness, what would be of clarity?
Legacy
Gil Vicente's work does not confine itself to theatre, reaching also poetry. Various composers worked on poems by Gil Vicente, in the form of lied (mainly some translations to German by Emanuel van Geibel), like Max Bruch or Robert Schumann, showing the universal character of his work
His issue, Paula and Luís Vicente, were responsible for the first edition of his complete work. Only in the 19th century Vicente's work would be rediscovered, with the third edition in 1834, in Hamburg, by Barreto Feio.
Morality plays
In his morality plays, Gil Vicente shows mastery of this ancient form.
One of his first attempts with this form was the play Auto da Fé (Play of the Soul, 1510).
Gil Vicente's trilogy called the Auto das Barcas is considered one of his finest consisting of Auto da Barca do Inferno (Auto of the Ship of Hell, 1516), Auto da Barca do Purgatório (Auto of the Ship of Purgatory, 1518), and Auto da Barca da Glória (Auto of the Ship of Glory or Heaven, 1519).
Farsas (Farces)
For his farces and comedies, Gil Vicente had only indigenous popular entertainments as a precursor.
One of the characteristics that appear in these farces is his use of special language to separate the racial and social classes in his play.
The staging of these plays used the simplicity of morality plays.
Auto da Índia (Auto of India, 1509) is one of his first comedies and it shows a great deal of confidence. Gil Vicente wrote farces throughout the rest of his life.
Gil Vicente's work in creating new forms such as the farce, and raising the morality play to its apotheosis, created the base upon which Portuguese and Spanish drama would be built.
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