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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

Manuel Laranjeira

Manuel Laranjeira 1877-1912 Doctor, poet, playwright and article writer

"     A TRISTEZA DE VIVER (to Mrs. Dalila dos Reis Ferreira) Ânsia de amar! Oh ânsia de viver! Uma hora só que seja, mas vivida e satisfeita... e pode-se morrer – porque se morre abençoando a vida! Mas ess'hora suprema em que se vive quanto possa sonhar-se de ventura oh vida mentirosa, oh vida impura esperei-a, esperei-a, e nunca a tive! E quantos como eu a desejaram! E quantos como eu nunca tiveram uma hora de amor como a sonharam! Em quantos olhos tristes tenho eu lido O desespero dos que não viveram Esse sonho de amor incompreendido!".

Manuel Fernandes Laranjeira was born in Vergada, in the parish of Mozelos, Santa Maria da Feira council, on 17 August 1877. He was one of seven children of Domingos Fernandes da Silva, a stone-mason who died of tuberculosis.
In 1884, his primary education began in the former parish house in São Martinho de Argoncilhe, where he excelled as a student. His teacher, João Carlos Pereira de Amorim, saw that he was very intelligent and anticipated a promising future for his student.

After the death of his father, he had to care for his mother, which eventually cost him his freedom. He had to postpone a much desired trip to Paris, where he was supposed to meet his friend Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, an artist who Laranjeira felt would "win and triumph". Yet he never went to Paris. He saw his mother as a simple and affectionate person who called him "my orange-tree" [in Portuguese, the surname "Laranjeira" means orange tree), and who saw, from the very beginning, that he was a lonely man.

Because his family was very poor, his four elder brothers (António, Joaquim, Francisco and Salvador) immigrated to Brazil, where they lived with a wealthy uncle. Here, Salvador dated his cousin, the eldest daughter of his Brazilian uncle, and married her after his uncle died, in the 1880s. They both returned to Porto soon after to take care of the remaining brothers and sisters, Manuel, Mamede e Luísa.

With the financial help of his brother and sister-in-law, Manuel Laranjeira enrolled at the age of 18 in a Porto high school. This was when he wrote his first poem, "Tenho inveja de Cristo…" [I envy Christ] (1898). After he completed his studies, he attempted to write drama plays, namely "O Filósofo" [The Philosopher].

In 1899, he enrolled in the Porto Medical-Surgical School, to study Medicine. He was a very diligent and active student, discussing the social, moral and political issues of his time, joining an anti-monarchy group, defending modern culture and becoming a fierce controversialist. He wrote many articles for different newspapers and journals (the students' newspaper, O Campeão, Teatro Português, Revista Musical, Porto Médico, Serões, Ilustração Transmontana, Jornal de Notícias, Voz Pública, Norte and Pátria).

From 1901 on, he adopted his mother's surname, Laranjeira.
In the following year, he edited "Amanhã" and had a son, Flávio with Maria Rosa de Jesus Neves, a house-maid in Espinho.

In 1903, he travelled for the first time outside Portugal, to Madrid, where he visited the Prado Museum. He never went on a second visit to Madrid which was scheduled for 1906 because the father of his very close friend, António Patrício, who was meant to travel with him, died.

Five years after enrolling for the time in the Porto Medical-Surgical he graduated in Medicine with the final mark of fifteen out of twenty. During the final year, he was invited to teach Biology. In 1904, he managed the finances of his nephew Joaquim, son of Salvador, but with a disastrous outcome as he invested the money entrusted to him on a chemist that went bankrupt. He suffered from syphilis since 1899, which affected his mental health and worsened his depression.

In the meantime, he tried to find the reasons why Antero de Quental had committed suicide by studying biological heredity, and blamed Antero's attitude on the influence of 17th century mystics and to blood-relationships. During this research, he met the fourth grandfather of the poet and writer Father Bartolomeu de Quental, and became interested in mysticism.

Between 1905 and 1906, he wrote on "The Nirvana" for the journal Porto Médico, wrote "Às Feras"[The Beasts] and gave five Biology lectures ("The biological map (an introduction to the study of Biology): Man's place in nature – The need to adapt – Biology Antiquity "). By then, the mother of his son Flávio died and Manuel Laranjeira went through many periods of emotional instability due to the troubled love relationships, first with a fishmonger and later with Augusta, his mistress for about three years, whom he constantly wrote about in a contradictory manner in his diaries.

In 1907, he defended the thesis entitled "The illness of holiness – A psychopathological essay on religious mysticism", at the Porto Medical-Surgical School, and received the title of Doctor in Medicine.

Manuel Laranjeira lived an unsatisfied life, he wrote many social, artistic, literary and political critiques, and gave persuasive conferences.

In 1908, he met Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish writer, poet and philosopher who became one of his greatest friends and frequent pen-friends (1864-1936). Unamuno wrote one day that "Laranjeira showed me the tragic soul of Portugal (…) and many places within the frightful abysses of the human soul". He joined the Association of National Education and was elected for the Municipal Commission of the Republican Party in Espinho. In Porto, he attended the concerts by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Berlin and edited the second "Intimate Diary".

In 1909, he campaigned against the teachers of the Porto Medical-Surgical School in A Voz Pública. In April, he presented to the 2nd Pedagogic Congress organized by the Association of National Education, a biology-medical essay on the educational value of the João de Deus learning method applied to the teaching of reading.

His second son, Manuel, was born between 1909 and 1910.

In 1911, he gave a lecture on the protection of towns against the actions of the sea, in Aliança Theatre, in Espinho. He was elected for the Propaganda Commission of the Democratic Centre, in Espinho, and was appointed Council Administrator. However, he renounced this post due to health reasons.

His health deteriorated in the last years of his life. He was ill, isolated and obsessed with suicide, which he believed was the perfect way to achieve "moral redemption".
In 1912, he published the poems "Commigo. Versos de um solitário" [With me. Verses of a solitary man]. On 22 February in the same year, he put into practice what he had for a long time threatened to do: he shot himself in the head at a beach, in Espinho.

In the preface of the book Cartas, by Manuel Laranjeira, Miguel de Unamuno spoke of this desperate act: "Life killed him. And by killing himself, he gave life to death". Ironically, the copy of Rosário de Sonetos Líricos [A Rosary of Lyric Sonnets], which Unamuno had sent him from Salamanca, arrived on the same day that Laranjeira died.
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2008)