Reis Gomes (João dos)

He is a reserve major of artillery and was born in the parish (freguesia) of São Pedro (‘St Peter’) in this city on 5 January 1869, the son of João Gomes Benta and Dona Maria Gertrudes Castro Gomes. He attended the Lyceum (Liceu) of Funchal and completed the courses of the Polytechnic School and the Army School with high distinction, being commissioned second lieutenant on 29 December 1892.

Besides military service at various places on the mainland, he was commander of No. 3 Battery of Garrison Artillery in this city, inspector of war matériel for this island, and a teacher at the Liceu de Jaime Moniz and at the Funchal Industrial School (Escola Industrial do Funchal).

Major Reis Gomes is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Portugal, holds the Palmes Académiques of the French Academy and is a commander of the Order of St James.

He is, beyond dispute, the most distinguished Madeiran writer and journalist, and many also regard him as the foremost theatre critic in our country. It would be most desirable if, from the hundreds of theatre reviews and critical appraisals that have come from his pen, a selection of some dozens were made and gathered into a volume. This would rescue from undeserved oblivion true masterpieces, which they unquestionably are in their genre. We have already referred briefly elsewhere to Major Reis Gomes’s writings on music and the theatre, and it should be added here that, in our view, the time has not yet come for these studies to be given the assessment they deserve, bringing out the great value they contain (1921).

One of the features that distinguished some of J. dos Reis Gomes’s writings, and that made them most appreciated here, was irony and satire, handled somewhat in the manner of Ramalho and Fialho. The comic and the grotesque in people and things, caught in the act, were presented to the reader with an original and spontaneous wit, and also with rigour and fairness of judgement, although at times biting and irreverent mockery came to underline the words and ideas... (1921).

After that date, Major João dos Reis Gomes published the following further works: Forças Psíquicas (philosophical essay), O Belo Natural e Artístico (paper presented to the Academy), Figuras de Teatro, Através da França, Suíça e Itália (travel diary), Três capitais de Espanha (Burgos, Toledo e Sevilha), O Anel do Imperador (paper presented to the Academy), Natais (tales and narratives), O Vinho da Madeira (monograph), Casas Madeirenses, O Cavaleiro de Santa Catarina (paper presented to the Academy), De Bom Humor (narratives) and Casos de Tecnologia (popular science).

As a matter of principle we have generally refrained from any assessment of our writers from a strictly literary point of view, but we may be permitted to say now that Major Reis Gomes is among those who bring the greatest honour and lustre to Madeiran letters, and that his name will remain in the history of this archipelago as that of one of its most brilliant and accomplished writers and journalists.