Brazilian poet born in the Arraial de São José do Rio das Mortes, today Tiradentes, Minas Gerais, included among the pre-Romantics and that, due to his literary activities, he was an adversary and protégé of the Pombalism. He studied and was a novice at the Colégio dos Jesuitas, in Rio de Janeiro, until the expulsion of the Companhia de Jesus do Brasil (1759) by order of the despot Marquês de Pombal and continued his studies at the Episcopal College of São Joseph.
Accused of Jesuitism, he was persecuted by the Pombalino government and went to Italy where he joined the Roman Arcadia, adopting the pseudonym Termindo Sipilío. He returned to Brazil (1767) and, the following year, went to Lisbon and was arrested there, denounced as a Jesuit supporter, and sentenced to exile in Africa. But thanks to an epithalamio, written for the wedding of the Marquis' daughter, Mrs. Maria Amália, begging her mercy and at the same time, praising the minister and rising up against the Jesuits, he was pardoned and escaped accusations of Jesuitism.
The Marquês de Pombal himself came to protect him and enabled him to complete and publish in Lisbon the epic poem O Uraguai (1769), his main work, an epic poem written in white decasyllables, without division of stanzas and composed of five chants, about heroism indigenous. Because of this work, he became known for having been the first Brazilian to treat the Indian with sympathy.
Also in this epic work, he praised the Portuguese crown's policy of fighting the Jesuits, who were portrayed ruthlessly. He then met a series of social successes, received a letter of nobility and nobility, but after Pombal's death, he was harassed and died in Lisbon. In addition to O Uraguai, he stood out in his work Quitúbia (1791), a heroic poem celebrating an African chief who helped the colony in the war against the Dutch, Lisbon.
Photo copied from the website A LITERATURA BRASILEIRA:
http://br.geocities.com/dariognjr69/
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
Order T - Biography - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/termindo-sepilio.htm
