As Farpas: Chronica Mensal Da Politica, Das Letras E Dos Costumes (1877-05/06)

As Farpas is the razor-sharp satirical chronicle that announced Eça de Queirós as Portugal's great literary provocateur. Written jointly with Ramalho Ortigão and published in monthly orange pamphlets between 1871 and 1872, this collection dissects the Portuguese Regeneração, the political and social order that emerged after the 1851 coup, with a ferocity that still feels contemporary. The text attacks the press, the church, the romantic literary establishment, and the bourgeois morality that had settled into power like a smug, self-satisfied fog over Lisbon. Each installment featured Asmodeus, the demonic spirit from scripture, on its cover, as if to announce that the devil was indeed in the details of Portuguese public life. The prose crackles with intelligent humor and controlled rage against the hypocrisy of a society that had traded genuine progress for comfortable corruption. Reading As Farpas today is to understand not only the birth of Portuguese realism but also the eternal temptation to mistake accumulation for civilization.