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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

Jorge de Sena

Jorge de Sena 1919-1978 Poet, writer, teacher and translator

Jorge Cândido de Sena was born on 2 November 1919, in S. Jorge de Arroios, Lisbon, to an upper middle class family. He was the only son of Augusto Raposo de Sena, from the Azores, of aristocrat descent and a commander in the Merchant Navy, and of Maria da Luz Grilo de Sena, a housewife from Covilhã, who had family ties in the Porto middle class.

He attended primary school at Colégio Vasco da Gama, between 1926 and 1931, and was transferred to Camões High School where he was taught Physics-Chemistry by Rómulo de Carvalho in the 6^th and 7^th years of the Complementary High School Course.
At the Faculty of Sciences in Lisbon, he attended the preparatory courses, which he completed with the best course mark at the age of seventeen.
His father hoped he would follow in his footsteps and choose a career in the Navy, while his mother gave him a musical education.
He began writing in 1936.

In 1937, he enrolled in the Naval School as first cadet, in the "Condestável" course [the patron saint of the course]. Unfortunate events during his training voyage on board the training ship Sagres, related to the strict rules in force, forced his premature expulsion from the Navy in the following year.
Later on, in several of his works, he wrote about this traumatic experience in his teenage years, which coincided with the introduction of the Fascist rule in Portugal and the fight for freedom in Spain.

He wrote his first book, Perseguição, in 1942.

After he left the navy, he sought a new profession in keeping with his social standing, and so he enrolled in the Civil Engineering course in Lisbon. However, in 1940 he transferred to the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. In the academic year 1942-1943, he failed his exams and faced the possibility of having to go into the army.

He resumed his studies in 1943 and in 1944 he faced some financial problems after the death of his father and his maternal grandmother, which threatened the conclusion of his degree. However, he managed to overcome these setbacks with the financial help of his friends Ruy Cinatti and José Blanc.
In 1947, he began working as a civil engineer, at the Lisbon City Council, and between 1948 and 1959 he worked for the National Roads Administration.

In the meantime, in 1949 he married Mécia Lopes, the daughter of Porto musicians, whom he had met at a dance reception for freshmen at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto. They had nine children over a 10-year period. To support such a large family, he also worked as a translator, literary director and proof-reader.

In 1959, he fled to exile to Brazil as he feared the consequences of his participation in the failed coup of 12 March, led by the Independent Military Movement, taking advantage of an invitation to go to São Paulo.

In Brazil, where he settled in August 1959, he changed his profession radically and became a (contracted) teacher of Theory of Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Assis, in São Paulo State. In 1961, he moved to the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Araraquara as contracted Full Professor of Portuguese Literature.

In 1963, he became a naturalized Brazilian and in 1964 he defended his PhD thesis in Letters and Teaching Portuguese Literature, with the sonnets entitled Os Sonetos de Camões and Soneto Quinhentista Peninsular, which he passed with merit and distinction.
The time he spent in Brazil (1959-1965) was probably the most productive time in terms of literary work. During these years, he wrote, for example, Metamorfoses (poems) and O físico prodigioso (novel).

The 1964 military coup worried him and forced his hasty departure from Brazil. In 1965, he moved to the USA with his family and began teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in October, and later, in 1967, he was appointed Full Professor of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

In 1970, he moved to the University of California, in Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he took up the post of effective Full Professor of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and of Head of the Department of Comparative Literature.
Jorge de Sena faced some serious problems in the last years of his life spent in the USA. To his weak health, deteriorated by gall bladder problems, were added the misfortune of seeing one of his grandchildren with heart problems and the anxiety caused by the Portuguese political instability in the post-25 April period.

He died on 4 June 1978, at the age of sixty eight, in Santa Barbara, California.

This important man of the 20^th century Portuguese culture produced an extensive and varied work, formed by about twenty anthologies of poetry, a tragedy in verse, ten one-act plays, more than thirty short stories, a tale, a novel, approximately forty volumes of critique and essays – on Camões, Fernando Pessoa, the history and theory of English literature, theatre, cinema, arts – and translations of poetry, fiction, drama and essays.

Jorge de Sena was also a lecturer, drama and literary critic, film commentator, director of publications such as Cadernos de Poesia, editorial coordinator in the journal Mundo Literário, literary advisor for the edition of "Livros do Brasil" [Books of Brazil] and in the Brazilian publishers Agir, co-founder of the Theatre Group "Os Companheiros do Páteo das Comédias" (1948), collaborator of António Pedro in the radio programme Romance Policial, broadcasted by Rádio Clube Português, and an adapter of short stories.

As an opponent of the Estado Novo in the 1960s, he was the co-founder of the Unidade Democrática Portuguesa, a member of the editorial board of the newspaper "Portugal Democrático" and participated in the activities organized by the Centro Republicano Português of São Paulo, in Brazil.
In the United States, his cultural activity focused on the academic and emigration circles, but he maintained, however, contact with Portuguese and Brazilian intellectuals and writers, and made several work trips to Europe, Mozambique and Angola.

In 2009 his remains were moved to the Prazeres cemetery in Lisbon, thus ending in the words of José Jorge Letria, the "second exile" of the writer.
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2008)