Poet. Manuel Bocage was a Portuguese poet of neoclassical, pre-Romantic style, in whom Arcadianism was still very present. His poems irradiate the anguished sense of existence and annihilation, expressed in dramatic oppositions (love, heaven and hell, death, horror and liberation) and a taste for the macabre, simultaneously with the Arcadian conventionalism of the allegories. Bocage began to make verses at an early age, and, at the age of 14, he left school and joined the 7th Infantry Regiment. Tired of garrison life in Setúbal after two years, he decided to join the Portuguese navy. He proceeded to the Royal Marine Academy in Lisbon but instead of studying he pursued romantic adventures. For the next five years he had numerous love affairs, and his retentive memory and extraordinary talent for improvisation gained him a host of admirers. Brazilian "modinhas", short rhyming poems sung accompanied by guitar at family parties, were very popular at the time, and Bocage added to his fame by writing a number of these, by his skill in extemporizing verses on a given theme, and by allegorical idyllic pieces. In 1786 he was appointed marine guard in the Portuguese India navy, and reached Goa in October. There he came into an "ignorant society full of petty intrigue", where his particular talents found no place to display themselves; the glamour of the East left him unmoved and the climate brought him a serious illness. In these circumstances he compared the heroic traditions of Portugal in Asia, which had induced him to leave home, with the reality, and wrote satirical sonnets on "A Decadência do Império Português na Ásia" ("The Decadence of the Portuguese Empire in Asia"), and those addressed to Afonso de Albuquerque and João de Castro. The irritation caused by these satires, together with rivalries in love affairs, made it advisable for him to leave Goa, and early in 1789 he obtained the post of lieutenant of the infantry company in Damão, India. He then promptly deserted and made his way to Macau, where he arrived in July-August. According to a contemporary tradition, much of "Os Lusíadas" had been written there, and Bocage probably travelled to China following in the footsteps of another classic Portuguese poet, Luís de Camões, to whose life and misfortunes he loved to compare to his own. Though he escaped the penalty of his desertion, he had no resources and lived on the charity of friends, whose help enabled him to return to Lisbon in the middle of the following year. Once back in Portugal he regained his old popularity and resumed his bohemian life. The age was one of reaction against the Marquis of Pombal's reforms, and his superintendent of police, Pina Manique, in his determination to keep out French revolutionary and atheistic propaganda, forbade the importation of foreign classics and the discussion of all liberal ideas. Hence the only vehicle of expression left was satire, which Bocage employed with an unsparing hand. His poverty compelled him to live with turbulent friends, and he soon fell under suspicion from Pina Manique. He became a member of the New Arcadia, a literary society founded in 1790, under the name "Elmano Sadino," but left three years later. Though including in its ranks most of the poets of the time, the New Arcadia produced little of real merit, and before long its adherents became mutual enemies and descended to an angry war of words. But Bocage's reputation among the general public and with foreign travellers grew year by year. William Beckford, the author of "Vathek," described him as a "pale, limber, odd-looking young man, the queerest but perhaps the most original of God's poetical creatures. This strange and versatile character may be said to possess the true wand of enchantment which at the will of its master either animates or petrifies." In 1797 enemies of Bocage belonging to New Arcadia denounced him to Pina Manique, who on the pretext afforded by some anti-religious verses, the "Epístola a Marília" ("Epistle to Marília"), along with accusations of immorality, arrested him when he was about to flee the country and flung him in the Limoeiro jail, where he spent his 32nd birthday. His sufferings induced him to a speedy recantation, and after much importuning of friends, he obtained his transfer in November from the state prison to that of the Portuguese Inquisition, by then a lenient institution, and shortly afterwards recovered his liberty. He then subsisted by writing "Elogios Dramáticos" ("Dramatic Compliments") for the theatres, printing volumes of verses and translating the didactic poems of Delille, Castel and others, along with some second-rate French plays. These resources and the help of Freemasons enabled him to survive, and a purifying influence came into his life in the shape of a real affection for the two daughters of António Bersane Leite, which drew from him verses of true feeling mixed with regrets for the past. In 1801 his poetical rivalry with José Agostinho de Macedo became more acute and personal, and ended by drawing from Bocage a stinging extempore poem, "Pena de Talião" ("Talion's Feather"), which remains a monument to his powers of invective. In 1804 the illness (syphilis) from which he suffered worsened, and the approach of death inspired other acclaimed sonnets. He became reconciled to his enemies, and died in poverty on December 21, 1805 at the age of 40, of an aneurysm. He was buried in the parish graveyard of Mercês, next to the parish church of the same name, in Lisbon. Following the ban on burials in religious places and urbanisation orders, the cemetery was demolished and no longer exists. Bocage's remains, buried in grave number 36 were kept there for some time and due to being randomly and haphazardly transferred by cart to Alto de São João Cemetery, were lost and buried in a common grave. To Beckford, Bocage was a powerful genius, and Link was struck by his "nervous expression, harmonious versification and the fire of his poetry." He employed every variety of lyric and made his mark on all of them. Although also acclaimed by his roundels, epigrams, satires and odes, his fame rests on his sonnets. In 1871 a monument was erected to the poet in the main square in Setúbal, and the centenary of his death was observed there with great ceremony in 1905.