Note 26 — Chapter II · PERIOD OF FORMATION (1500-1750)
Reading edition
The chief works of Antonio José da Silva are Vida do Grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança (1733); Ezopaida ou Vida de Ezopo (1734); Os Encantos de Medea (1735); Amphytrião ou Jupiter e Alcmena (1736); Labyrintho de Creta (1736); Guerras do Alecrim e da Manjerona (1737); a highly amusing Molièresque farce, considered by many his best; As Variedades de Proteu (1737); Precipicio de Faetonte (posthumous).
The latest view of Antonio José (See Bell’s Portuguese Literature, pages 282-284); whom Southey considered “the best of their drama writers,” is that his plays would in all likelihood have received little “attention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had it not been for the tragedy of the author’s life.” This probably overstates the case against O Judeu, but it indicates an important non-literary reason for his popularity.