Sousa (Francisco Clementino de)
Biography of Francisco Clementino de Sousa (1846–1896), a Funchal-born physician, sanitary inspector and bank treasurer best remembered as a gifted satirical poet and journalist who often wrote as 'Faustino Brasão'.
Life, career and satirical writings
He was born in this city on 26 February 1846, the son of the pharmacist Francisco Xavier de Sousa and Dona Virgínia Medina de Sousa. He completed the course of the Funchal Medical-Surgical School (Escola Médico-Cirúrgica do Funchal) in 1868 and on two occasions taught a chair there on an interim basis. For many years he held the post of sanitary inspector of the slaughterhouse of this municipality (concelho) and was treasurer of the former Banco Comercial da Madeira.
He contributed extensively and with distinction, in prose and verse, to the former newspaper O Direito (‘Law’), to the Diário de Notícias and to other periodicals. In defence of his father, and in a dispute with the Count of Canavial, he published an anonymous booklet in 1868 entitled a questão entre o Dr. João da Câmara Leme. . . e o pharmaceutico Francisco Xavier de Sousa, and in 1874 he published another pamphlet entitled Resposta ao Sr. Acurcio Garcia Ramos.
The hallmark of Francisco Clementino de Sousa’s writings, especially his poems, was satire and irony, handled with rare skill, exceptional talent and inimitable wit. His works were read with the greatest eagerness and always caused an extraordinary stir in our literary circles. It is no exaggeration to say that many of his poems rivalled those of Tolentino and of other poets who left a glorious name in our literature in the satirical genre. Had he lived in another milieu, he would easily have achieved great fame. Although a considerable part of his writings has lost its topicality, since it refers to people and events unknown to the present generation, these writings can still be read and enjoyed with great pleasure for the spontaneity, beauty of form and unsurpassed wit that shine through them. It would be a valuable service to letters to publish some of these works in a volume, saving from unjust and undeserved oblivion so many compositions that are true masterpieces of their kind. In many of his writings Francisco Clementino de Sousa adopted the pseudonym Faustino Brasão. He died in this city on 24 July 1896.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 04-
Francisco Clementino de Sousa was born in Funchal.
-
Francisco Clementino de Sousa completed the course of the Funchal Medical-Surgical School and published an anonymous pamphlet defending his father.
-
Acúrsio Garcia Ramos published a pamphlet on the hygiene of the Santa Isabel hospital in Funchal, which drew replies from Júlio Augusto Leiria and Francisco Clementino de Sousa.
-
Francisco Clementino de Sousa died in Funchal.
Place
Places mentioned · 01
- Funchal
City where Sousa was born, worked and died.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.
People
People mentioned · 06- Francisco Clementino de Sousa1846–1896
Funchal physician and satirical poet, subject of this entry, who wrote under the pseudonym Faustino Brasão.
- Acúrsio Garcia Ramos1834–1892
Writer to whom Sousa addressed a reply pamphlet in 1874.
- D. João Frederico da Câmara Leme1865–1878
Madeiran physician with whom Sousa's father was in dispute, the subject of Sousa's anonymous 1868 pamphlet.
-
Funchal pharmacist, father of Francisco Clementino de Sousa, whom his son defended in an 1868 pamphlet.
-
Portuguese satirical poet with whose work Sousa's compositions are compared.
-
Mother of Francisco Clementino de Sousa.