GONCALVES DIAS, ANTONIO Brazilian lyric poet, was born near the town of Caxias, in Maranhao. He studied law at the university at Coimbra, in Portugal, and in decided to try his fortune as an author at Rio de Janeiro. Here he wrote for the newspaper press, ventured to appear as a dramatist, and in 1846 established his reputation by a volume of poems—Primeiros Cantos—which were remarkable for their autobiographic impress, and placed their author at the head of the lyric poets of his country. In 1848 he followed up his success by Segundos Cantos e sextilhas de Frei Antao, and in the following year, in fulfilment of the duties of his new post as professor of Brazilian history in the Imperial College of Pedro II. at Rio de Janeiro, he published an edition of Berredo's Annaes historicos do Maranhao and added a sketch of the migrations of the Indian tribes. A third volume of poems, Ultimos Cantos, published in 1851, was practically the poet's farewell to the service of the muse, for he spent the next eight years engaged under Government patronage in studying public instruction in the north and the educational institutions of Europe. On his return to Brazil in 186o he joined an exploring expedition but was forced in 1862 by the state of his health to try the effects of another visit to Europe. He died in Sept. 1864. While in Germany he published at Leipzig a complete collection of his lyrical poems, which went through several editions, the four first cantos of an epic poem called Os Tymbiras (18S7) and a Diccionario da lingua Tupy (1858).
A complete edition of the works of Dias has been published in Rio de Janeiro. See Wolf, Bresil litteraire (Berlin, 1863) ; Innocencio de Silva, Diccionario bibliographico portuguez, viii. 157; Sotero dos Reis, Curso de litteratura portugueza e brazileira, iv. (Maranhao, 1868) ; Jose Verissimo, Estudos de literatura brazileira, segunda serie (Rio, IGoI).