Pompéia, Raúl (1863–1895)

Raúl Pompéia (b. 12 April 1863; d. 25 December 1895), Brazilian writer. Pompéia was born in Angra dos Reis, in Rio de Janeiro State. He lived a very solitary and repressed life, having to yield constantly to his parents' strict and exigent ways. A kind soul, he also possessed a depressed and morbid personality, having gone through many existential conflicts throughout his entire life. He committed suicide, by shooting himself in the heart, at the age of thirty-two.

Upon his family's relocation to the city of Rio de Janeiro, Pompéia was sent to the Abílio Boarding School, run by the baron of Macaubus, where he experienced neglect and abuse at the hands of school officials and classmates. Most of his critics agree, however, that while attending this school Pompéia found the inspiration to write his realist-naturalist, existentialist masterpiece O Ateneu, published in 1888. This novel inspired authors from all over the world, including Sartre in his Huis-clos (1944; No Exit, 1947). Through his limited literary production, Pompéia captured the psychological agonies of modern man and expressed them in a literary discourse that was universal in nature. His other works include Uma tragédia no Amazonas (1880), his first novelistic essay, published in the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias; Canções sem metro (1881), prose poems; and As joías da coroa (1883), also published in Gazeta de Notícias in 1882.

See alsoLiterature: Brazil .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Claude Hulet, Brazilian Literature, vol. 2 (1974).

Additional Bibliography

Capaz, Camil. Raul Pompéia: Biografia. Rio de Janeiro: Gryphus, 2001.

Prado, Antonio Arnoni, et al. Raul Pompéia. Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil: UNICAMP, Departamento de Teoria Literária, 1995.

                                  RosÂngela Maria Vieira