The romantic literature from the perspective of Álvares de Azevedo and Lopes de Mendonça: critical dialogues

Abstract

The essay "Literatura e civilização em Portugal", by Álvares de Azevedo, divides the Portuguese literature history in two phases that are already designated by their own titles: the heroic, dedicated to Ferreira and Camões, and the dark, circumscribed to Bocage. Nevertheless, beyond the canon previously established, Azevedo made an important comment, although panoramic, about the most recent works in the Portuguese literature scenario around 1850. And, for that, he turns to the writings, also recent, of a contemporaneous critic, Lopes de Mendonça, and to his Ensaios de crítica e literatura (1848), collected from a previous publication on the periodical A Revolução de Setembro. The reading done by the Brazilian essayist signalizes, on a literary generation whose interest was mainly owards France and England, the maintenance of the dialogue between the Portugueses and the Brazilians, even after the political independence of Brazil and the intended rupture resulting from it. Therefore, this article intends to analyse the touch points and the dissonances between the positions of both authors about the Portuguese romanticism, based on how Azevedo reads Mendonça's works, whose critical thought was mainly featured by an exacerbated socialism and by the disapproval of the excesses of the ultra romanticism.