Ricardo Reis (1887-1936?)
Poet of a sad Epicureanism,
master of highly wrought, metaphysical and neoclassical odes,
Ricardo Reis was born in Porto and educated by Jesuits.
A doctor by profession and monarchist by conviction,
Reis sought exile in Brazil after the proclamation of the
first Portuguese Republic in 1919. The cause and date
of his death are uncertain. Antonio Tabucchi, one of Reis'
foremost critics and translators, believes Reis to have died
peacefully in exile toward the end of 1935.
Novelist José Saramago, however, speculates that
Reis mysteriously passed away in Lisbon a year later,
unwittingly entangled in the revolts which
spilled over from the Spanish Civil War into Lisbon.