José Simões Dias

Who is José Simões Dias?

José Simões Dias was a Portuguese poet, short-story writer and literary critic, as well as politician and pedagogue. His poetry is generally affiliated with the later Romantic tradition, sometimes termed Ultra-Romanticism, although some of his poems, popular in tone, can be seen to betray an affinity for the Realist aesthetics that was then beginning to blossom in Portuguese letters. As a deputy to the National Assembly under the constitutional monarchy of Luís I, he authored the bill that would transform the birthday of Camões into Portugal Day, an important national holiday.