Franklin Távora: biography, works, phases, summary

Franklin Távora (João Franklin da Silveira Távora) was born on January 13, 1842, in Baturité, in the state of Ceará. Later, he studied law in Recife, was a proofreader, provincial deputy, government secretary and employee of the Secretariat of the Empire.

The author, who died on August 18, 1888, in Rio de Janeiro, was one of the representatives of the regionalist prose of the brazilian romanticism. In this way, his works value the customs of the North from Brazil and feature typically national characters, as can be seen in his novel the hair.

Read more: Bernardo Guimarães — one of the main prose Brazilian romanticism regionalists

Summary about Franklin Távora

The Brazilian writer Franklin Távora was born in 1842 and died in 1888.
In addition to being a writer, he was a reviewer and provincial deputy.
He was part of Romanticism and was known for his regionalist novels.
His works value the regional culture associated with Northern Brazil.
His most famous book is the novel the hair.

Franklin Tavora biography

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Franklin Távora (João Franklin da Silveira Távora) born January 13, 1842, in Baturité, in the Ceará. Later, in 1859, he began to study at the law School do Recife, in Pernambuco, with graduation in 1863. In that city, he worked as a reviewer at the Recife newspaper, in addition to being one of the founders of the newspaper the American, in 1862.

He also served as director-general of Public Instruction, in 1867, and served as provincial deputy from 1868 to 1869, when he assumed the position of general curator of orphans. Between 1869 and 1870, he was one of the editors of the periodical Free Consciousness and, between 1872 and 1873, of the weekly The truth.

In the year 1873, he held the post of government secretary, no stop. In 1874, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he worked at the Secretariat of the Empire, a job he held with great dissatisfaction. However, he depended on him to survive as he did not earn enough money from literature.

In Rio de Janeiro, he was one of the creators of the Associação dos Homens de Letras do Brasil, in 1877, and directed the Brazilian Magazine, between 1879 and 1881. The following year, in 1882, he became a member of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro (IHGB). In addition, he published texts in New Magazine of Buenos Aires.

Later, in 1887, he also wrote for the periodical The week. He died the following year, on August 18, 1888, in Rio de Janeiro. Years after his death, he was chosen by Clóvis Beviláqua (1859-1944) to be the patron of chair number 14 of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Works by Franklin Tavora

Recife phase
damn trinity (1861) — short stories
a family mystery (1861) — drama
The Jaguaribe Indians (1862) — novel
the straw house (1866) — novel
A wedding in the suburbs (1869) — novel
three tears (1870) — drama
Letters to Cincinnatus (1871) — critical studies
Rio phase
the hair (1876) — novel
Northern folk legends and traditions (1877) — short stories
the bush (1878) — novel
Lourenço (1878) — novel
The sacrifice (1879) — novel

Know more: iracema — iconic work of Romantic Indianism, written by José de Alencar

the hair

Cover of the book “O Cabeleira”, by Franklin Távora, published by Martin Claret.[1]

José Gomes (the Cabeleira) is the son of Joaquim Gomes, a “subject with bad guts, given to the practice of the most heinous crimes”, and Joana, a “living and edifying example of the tenderness, kindness, and spirit of religion that characterized”. However, the boy ends up suffering the influence of his father.

This is because Joaquim, fearing that his son, in the company of his mother, would end up “serving the vicar or, at least, being a sacristan”, takes the boy with him. The boy then says goodbye to his friend Luisinha. He says that if he ever comes back, he wants to marry her; and promises the girl that from that day on, he will not harm anyone.

With the bandit Teodósio, “José and Joaquim roamed the vast perimeter of the province in all directions, leaving their passage marked by theft, fire, and carnage”. The thugs spread terror across Pernambuco, and Cabeleira becomes famous for his crimes.

Years after the farewell, the romantic couple is reunited when Luisinha goes to fetch water from the river one afternoon. At first, they don't recognize each other, and Cabeleira has the following intention: "I want to take her with me for my fun". He identifies himself by his nickname, and only then did she "saw the long hair that fell in waves from under the brim of the straw hat over the killer's shoulders."

Then Luisinha identifies herself, and Cabeleira asks for forgiveness. From then on, the love he feels for the young woman makes the bandit regenerate. However, this love story comes to a tragic end for both heroine and hero. Cabeleira receives the death penalty for his crimes.

Before dying by hanging, he says the following words, “which tradition received as an inheritance to pass on to future generations”: “— I die regretting my mistakes. When I fell into the power of justice, my arm was already incapable of killing, because I had already entered the path of good...”.

Thus, this regionalist novel by Franklin Távora ends up being configured in a manifesto against the death penalty:

Oh! my friend, the death penalty; that age and enlightenment have shown to be nothing more than a legal crime, in fact it neither corrects nor moralises. What it does [...] is to abate the power that applies it; it is to scandalize, dismay and demean the populations in whose midst it takes place.

Justice executed Cabeleira for crimes that had their main origin in ignorance and poverty.