author

Maria de Lara e Meneses

1610–1649

Remembered as a 17th-century Portuguese poet, she is linked to a moving retelling of the story of Inês de Castro that later appeared in print. Even the basic facts of her life seem a little hazy, which gives her surviving work an added sense of mystery.

1 Audiobook

Saudades de D. Ignez de Castro

Saudades de D. Ignez de Castro

by Maria de Lara e Meneses

About the author

Maria de Lara e Menezes is listed by the Escritoras em português project as a Portuguese writer connected with Lisbon and identifies her date of birth as June 23, 1649. The same source notes that she was married and associates her with the poem Sentimentos ou Saudades de Ignez de Castro, a work printed later in Fénix Renascida.

Library catalog records also connect her to Saudades de d. Ignez de Castro and note that M. de A. was a pseudonym linked to Maria de Lara e Menezes. Because the surviving references are brief and not fully consistent with the dates supplied here, details about her life should be treated with some caution.

What stands out most clearly is her place in early Portuguese women's writing: a poet whose name survives through a work centered on one of Portugal's most enduring tragic love stories.