Cesário Verde is considered one of the most original and innovative poets of nineteenth-century Portuguese literature. Characterized by a highly personal style, Verde's poetry betrays his intense awareness of reality. He found inspiration in ordinary, everyday circumstances and events: "A mim o que me rodeia é o que me preocupa" (What surrounds me is what concerns me). Strolls down the streets of late-nineteenth-century Lisbon moved Verde to capture through poetry an extensive view of the industrialized landscape of the metropolis. His attention was drawn to palatial residences, modern constructions, wooden buildings, and shop windows as well as to street noise and crowds of people caught up in their daily struggle for survival. Verde's poems also include human portraits, in which he describes the conflicts inherent to the social stratification of the urban environment. His verse offers a rich sociological panorama of the times, ranging in subject...