Romanticism in Brazil: characteristics, context, authors

O Romanticism was one of the main art movements of the 19th century and, in Brazil, had as its starting point the publication of the work Poetic Sighs and Longing, in Gonçalves de Magalhães, in 1836. Possessing manifestations in both prose and verse, Brazilian Romanticism is considered one of the main landmarks of Literature in our country.

One of the reasons for this is the importance of romantic aesthetic for the historical moment in which this art is inserted in Brazil: the arrival of the Royal Family and the reclassification of the national territory, ceasing to be an exploration colony and, henceforth, becoming the United Kingdom to Portugal. Some main authors of Brazilian Romanticism are José de Alencar, Gonçalves Dias, Álvares de Azevedo, Casimiro de Abreu and Castro Alves.

Historical context

The main historical fact that permeates Romanticism in Brazil is the arrival gives Portuguese Royal Family, in 1808. During this period, the country officially ceased to be an exploration colony and became the headquarters of

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United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves. With that, a series of upgrades began to take place in the country. Some of the main ones are:

creation of the Brazilian press;
construction of the National museum (fired in 2018);
foundation of Banco do Brasil;
decree to open ports to friendly nations;
creation of the Ministry of the Navy, Foreign Affairs and the National Treasury, as well as the foundation of the Casa de Suplicação do Brasil (current Supreme Court of Justice).

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Features

Romanticism is the artistic movement that represents the bourgeoisiefrom the 18th and 19th century, that is, the movement is that of a production of the new elite society, which had surpassed absolutist regimes in several countries. Because of this, the ideals of this bourgeoisie are those present in romantic works. Some of them are:

self-centeredness (worship of the “I”; the individual as the center of existence);
nationalism;
exaltation of nature as an accomplice of the subject;
idealization of the hero, love and woman;
escape from reality through death, dream, madness or art.

In addition to these general characteristics, it is noteworthy that the manifestations of poetry and of the prose, within Romanticism, they each had their particularities, as we will explain below.

Casimiro de Abreu was one of the great names of ultra-romanticism.*

Read too: Characteristics of the novel literary genre

→Stages of Romanticism in Poetry

Brazilian romantic poetry, to be better understood, can be divided into the three groups or generations that encompass it: the Indianists, you ultra-romantic and the confreres.

⇒ Indianists (First Generation Romantic): had as main exponent the poet Gonçalves Dias. Indian poets were the most nationalists among the romantics. In his poems, like the famous I-Juca Pirama, the exaltation of the national nature and the construction of the Indian as a Brazilian hero can be noted:

my death song,
Warriors, I heard:
I'm a child of the jungles,
In the jungles I grew up;
warriors coming down

From the Tupi tribe.
From the mighty tribe,
who is now wandering
Due to fickle fate,
Warriors, I was born:
I'm brave, I'm strong,
I am a child of the North;
my death song,
Warriors, I heard.

I-Juca Pirama, Gonçalves Dias

⇒ Ultraromantic (Second Generation Romantic): also known as byronicor spleen, is marked by sentimentality accentuated, pessimism and escape from reality - by death, by dream, by madness or by art. The main representatives of this group were Álvares de Azevedo and Casimiro de Abreu.

I leave life as one who leaves boredom

From the desert, the walkway,

— Like the hours of a long nightmare

That unravels at the toll of a bell;

memory of dying, Álvares de Azevedo.

⇒ Condoreiros (Third Generation Romantic): also called Social or Hugoana(in honor of the French writer Victor Hugo, a kind of father of this generation), is notably marked by the social complaint. The main writer of this romantic trend, in Brazil, was Castro Alves, and, in his verses, one can clearly see a combatant discourse against slavery in force in the country.

Yesterday Sierra Leone,

The war, the hunting of the lion,

sleep for nothing

Under the big tents!

Today... the black basement, bottom,

Infectious, tight, filthy,

Having the jaguar plague...

And sleep is always cut off

By the pull of a deceased,

And the thud of a body overboard...

Yesterday full freedom,

The will for power...

Today... cum it with evil,

Nor are they free to die...

Slaveship, Castro Alves.

Read too: Five poems from Portuguese Literature

→ Prose

Romanticism in Brazil coincides with the arrival, in the country, of the press. This means that, from then on, it was possible to publish newspapers and books in Brazil, making cultural production cheaper and, consequently, more viable. One of the main forms of publication used at the time was the serials, a technique for writing and disseminating literary texts (in general, novels and novels) through newspapers and in parts. In this way, in each edition of the newspaper, there was the publication of a chapter of the work, as we observe in telenovelas or contemporary series.

The main prose writer of Brazilian romanticism was José de Alencar, and his work contains Indianist novels (iracema and The Guarani, for example), urban prose (such as Lady) and rural narratives (the novel til is an example of that type).

Beyond, far beyond that mountain range, which is still blue on the horizon, Iracema was born.

Iracema, the virgin with the honey lips, whose hair was blacker than the wing of the raven, and longer than her carved palm.

The jati's honeycomb was not as sweet as her smile; not even vanilla reeked in the woods like her fragrant breath

Faster than the wild deer, the virgin brunette ran through the sertão and the forests of the Ipu, where her warrior tribe, of the great Tabajara nation, reigned. Her graceful, bare foot, barely grazing, only smoothed the plush green that covered the earth with the first waters.

iracema, José de Alencar.

Iracema”, by José de Alencar, is one of the great classics of Brazilian Literature.*“