PORTUGUESE - BRAZILIAN LITERA TURE. The literature of Brazil has to some degree followed the literary tendencies of the motherland in Europe,. As it was long the cus tom to send Brazilian youths of promise to Coim bra for their training, the intellectual relations between Portugal and Brazil were very close dur ing the colonial period. Since the winning of Brazilian independence, however, Brazilian writers have shown no slight originality.
Four periods maybe marked: (1) From the age of discovery and exploration down to the middle of the eighteenth century, a period during which the seeds of culture are sown by missionaries from Europe, especially by the Jesuits. At first Portuguese and Spanish models are followed servilely, but in the first half of the eighteenth century a slight tendency toward independence manifested itself, even though Portuguese in fluence still ruled supreme. (2) The second half of the eighteenth century. an age which is char acterized by the endeavors of the poets of the school of Minas-Geraes, who show in certain in stances a growing desire to escape from the too rigid influence of the Old World. (3) The period ranging from the beginning of the nineteenth cen tury to about 1840, and bearing the impress of the political independence that began in 1822. (4) The epoch from 1840 on, during the Romantic movement collies to shake the power of Pseudo-Classicism as well in America as in Europe. and the feeling of national consciousness exerts a constantly growing influence.
(1) From the settlement to the middle of the eighteenth century. The Jesuits sought as soon as possible to naturalize the literary forms popu lar in the old country, and composed and had per formed dramas religious in their nature and based on the Autos of Gil Vicente and his successors. The first poet known by name is Bent() Texeira Pinto (born about 1550) : be is more noteworthy for his prose Relacao do naufragio gut' fez- . . . em o ammo de 1565 than for his verse. More important than Pinto are the brothers Gregorio and Eusehio de Mattos. Gregorio (1633-96), the better of the two, was an inveterate satirist; he closely imitated the Spanish Juvenal, Quevedo, adopting also the methods of the Spaniards Lope de Vega and Gongora. Spanish Gougorism prevailed likewise in the lyrics of Vieira Ravasco (1617 97) and Botelho de Oliveira (1636-1711) ; and Oliveira, like so many Portuguese of the period, wrote at least as much in Spanish as in Portu guese. Bahia, where the Viceroy dwelt, saw the greatest literary development in this first period. It was the centre of societies of men of letters, such as the Academia Brazilica dos Es quecidus, whose members produced much occa sional verse of a panegyrical nature. The pane
gyric of Brito de Lima (1671-1742) are typical compositions. We may mention the Franciscan Manoel de Santa Maria Haparica (born 1704), whose poetical legend, liustachidos, treats the well-known story of Saint Eustace, and the His foria da America portugueza of Sebastiao da Rocha Pita (1660-1738). This is the first truly scientific and detailed account of the history of Brazil. The first distinguished dramatist of Brazilian birth now appeared in Antonio Jose da. Silva (q.v.).
(2) Second half of the eighteenth century. The influence of Portuguese literature, itself now wholly subordinated to the precepts of French Pseudo-Classicism, continued to hold sway during this period, but the note of protest against what was fast beginning to be felt as foreign domina tion rang out ever more loudly both in politics and in letters. On the model of the European Academies and Arcadias, Rio de Janeiro had the Arcadia i'ltramarina founded by the poet Jose Basilio da Gama, (1740-95) and kindred spirits. The members of the coterie of Minas Geraes, many of them associated with the Arcadia Ultramarine, known as the poet as mineiros. headed the luckless movement for political independence which ema nated from that region. To Jos6 Basilio, a mas ter of style and harmony, is due the epic Uruguay, which describes the struggles of the Spanish and Portuguese troops against the Indians of Para guay. Another worthy endeavor to compose an epic is seen in the Caramani of Josii de Santa Rita Durao (1737-84), celebrating Diego Alvares, an early explorer of the coast of Bahia. The earliest of the lyric poets of the Minas Geraes group was Claudio Manoel da. Costa (1729-90), who hanged himself in prison after the failure of the revolutionary plot in which Ile and his fellow poets had figured. His close friend Thomaz Antonio Gonzaga (1744-1809). the great est member of the school and one of the most popular poets in the Portuguese speech, per ished in exile. Gonzaga is best known by the pseudonym of Direen, which lie assumed in his famous Marilia dc Direen. This collection of impassioned lyrics is addressed to his beloved (Marilia ). The erotic spirit also inspires the lyrics in the Glaura of Manoel Ignacio da Silva Alvarenga (1740-1814), who helped to found the Arcadia, Ultra marina. Alvarenga earnestly en deavored to infuse a more national and popular spirit into the Brazilian lyric. Domingos Caldas Barboza (I740-1800), author of cantigas, qnintilha.s, sonnets, etc., and Francesco de Mello Franco (1757-1823), who, with the aid of Jose Boni facio, wrote the mock-heroic poem. 0 reino da cstupidez, belong more properly to Portugal.