‘Lady’ writer

In 1874, aged twenty-seven, a mature age by the standards of the time, she married the Portugal-based Afro-Brazilian poet, Gonçalves Crespo. However, this did not interrupt her intellectual activity; on the contrary, in the following years she published Vozes no Ermo (1876),3 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Vozes no Ermo. Com uma Carta Prólogo do Sr. Conselheiro Latino Coelho (Lisbon: Tipografia Editora Mattos Moreira, 1876). poems, Serões do Campo (1877),4 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Serões no Campo (Lisbon: Tipografia Editora Mattos Moreira, 1877). a collection of short stories and essays, Arabescos: Notas e Perfis (1880),5 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Arabescos. Notas e Perfis (Lisbon: Tipografia das Horas Românticas, 1880). a set of biographical studies, Contos e Fantasias (1880),6 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Contos e Fantasias (Porto: Joaquim Antunes Leitão, 1880). fictional narratives, and Mulheres e Crianças: Notas Sobre a Educação,7 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Mulheres e Crianças: Notas Sobre Educação (Porto: Joaquim Antunes Leitão, 1880). on family-related matters. Her contributions to periodicals increased, initially under the pseudonym Valentina de Lucena. It would appear that her entry into journalism was through her uncle, Luís de Almeida e Albuquerque, editor and then, for some years, owner of the Jornal do Comércio (Lisbon, 1853–1989).

Her contributions to the Brazilian press began in February 1878, in the Jornal do Comércio (Rio de Janeiro, 1827–2016), at the time one of the most important newspapers in the city of Rio de Janeiro, capital of the Brazilian empire, with a text sent from Lisbon and dated 26 January:

Whereas writing was far from a new activity for Carvalho, the novelty lay in her addressing readers on the other side of the Atlantic, inhabitants of a country she had never been to and knew through her husband. The writer maintained a long relationship with the daily newspaper, whether more directly, although never regularly, between 1878 and 1881 and, later, from 1892 to 1897, as well as occasional contributions published until at least 1915.

In 1883, when she was expecting her third child, Gonçalves Crespo passed away; this was followed by the loss of a newborn son. Widowed and with two children, intellectual work became essential to maintain the family. It is perhaps no coincidence that, in October 1884, she accepted an invitation to work with the newspaper O País, which had just been founded in Rio de Janeiro. Until 1889 she was a regular presence in daily life, appearing in ninety-eight editions of the newspaper.9 For a list of chronicles see: Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Tania Regina de Luca (eds), Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Conversas Lisbonenses e Outros Escritos (1884–1889) (Campinas: FE-Unicamp, 2022). On rare occasions, she referred to her work as a writer, as in the following excerpt: ‘How I would love to be an inhabitant of this contemplative colony, I, whom life has hurt so so much, and yet I must always struggle, because two children wait on my enduring strenuous efforts for the bread for their bodies and the milk to nourish their infant souls!’.10 Maria Amalia Vaz de Carvalho. ‘Cartas Femininas’, in Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Conversas Lisbonenses e Outros Escritos (1884–1889), Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Tania Regina de Luca (eds), pp. 472–475, p. 475.

The essential role played by the periodical press in the process of professionalising intellectual activity during the nineteenth century is well established. The writers (including the few women writers) relied on their contributions to newspapers and magazines, in addition to the fame they acquired with their readers, to guarantee at least part of their living.11 See: Marie-Éve Thérenty, Littérature au Quotidien. Poétique Journalistique au XIXe Siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2007). The newspaper companies, for their part, were rewarded with the prestige of showcasing famous columnists, while at the same time gaining the loyal readership of subscribers who were interested in keeping up with the sections. It was, therefore, a two-way street; the gains were shared in a constant feedback loop of ennoblement. The readers also included women, which led to the presence of female columnists in the periodicals.

Carvalho, a versatile polygraph whose contributions filled the pages of the daily papers and illustrated and variety magazines, represents an eloquent example. The author of translations, poems, short stories, essays, biographies, and literary criticism, she also offered advice on marriage, the education of boys and girls, the situation and condition of women, social coexistence and behaviour, charity, moral and religious principles, examined from various angles. A contemporary of the emerging movements for women’s rights, she gained respect in an intellectual field averse to the presence of women, which, in the key proposed by Pierre Bourdieu,12 Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996). invites us to reflect on the circumstances and strategies that allowed her to occupy public space and impose herself as a literate woman. Hence the importance of her famous salon on Travessa de Santa Catarina in Lisbon, which was frequented by artists and writers. The habit of hosting brought her the benefit of exchanges and closer affective bonds, at a time when the presence of women in literary institutions was forbidden. The house, open to guests, became a semi-public space where the owner could exercise her intellectual skills and also establish herself as a refined hostess. In Lopes’ summary:

The way she was treated in literary circles is a significant indication of the representation constructed about her. It is symptomatic that the virtues preached by the writer became defining attributes of her own career, which was elevated to the status of exemplary. Her noble origins, encyclopaedic culture, a devoted wife and mother, were all aspects highlighted by her contemporaries, evidenced, for example, in the prefaces to her works. In one of them, the Portuguese writer Ramalho Ortigão characterised her as an heroic daughter, an exemplary wife, and a sublime mother, who ‘writes for the press with the same humility with which other women make socks or spin on the spinning wheel to honourably and obscurely earn their living’.14 Ramalho Ortigão, ‘Carta’, in Crônicas de Valentina, Maria Amália Vaz de Camargo (ed.) (Lisbon: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, 1890), p. XVI.

In 1917, upon the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of her first book, Augusto de Castro applauded her vast and diverse production and, like Ortigão, also insisted on her humility: ‘she never needed to leave the discreet and flowery penumbra of her salon’, in other words, reaffirming, through praise, the subordinate role of the honouree, who knew how to behave with the discretion appropriate to her condition. The speaker praised her stately figure, the aristocratic background from which she came, her moral predilections, sensitivity and education, concluding that ‘accordingly, the tall and noble lady never ceased to be everything that constitutes emotionality, sweetness, simplicity, the perfect prototype of the Portuguese woman’, but also acknowledged that she ‘made a living from her pen for many years, like Camilo [Castelo Branco] or [Manuel] Pinheiro Chagas’, hastening to add that ‘she was never a feminist, nor did she feel the need to preach the political emancipation of her sex’.15 Augusto Castro, ‘D. Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho’, in Cartas a uma Noiva, Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho (ed.), pp. 10–11. The speech was included in the fourth edition of the work, originally published in 1891.

Castro, a writer and diplomat, outlined a curious classification that distinguished between male writers, who assumed a masculine posture; female writers, who abandoned the modesty and discretions typical of their sex; and, finally, lady writers, a category to which Dona Maria Amália, as she was called, belonged. The respectability she gained seemed to come more from her unblemished reputation, modesty, and devoted performance of the duties inherent to being a woman than from her production as a writer, which were quite different criteria to those required of and applied to male writers. In a different tone, her fellow Portuguese Ana Castro Osório (1872–1935), who was younger and distinguished for her fight for women’s emancipation, did not fail to recognise Carvalho’s importance, writing in 1912:

But, after all, what did Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho stand for? A systematic analysis of her contribution to O País allows us to distinguish the stances and ideals for which she fought throughout the period in which her words occupied the pages of the newspaper.