Castro Alves
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Antônio de Castro Alves (March 14, 1847 - July 6, 1871) , more commonly known as Castro Alves, was born on March 14 1847, in the town of Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil. He is best known for his abolitionist and republican poems, and is considered one of the most important Brazilian poets of the 19th century.
[edit] Life
In 1862, he entered the Faculdade de Direito de Recife. At the same year, he had an affair with Portuguese actress Eugênia Câmara and wrote his first abolitionist poems: "Os Escravos" (The Slaves) and "A Cachoeira de Paulo Afonso" (Paulo Afonso's Waterfall), reading them out loud in public events in defense of the abolitionist cause. Even though many Brazilians stood up against it at that time, slavery in Brazil was not officially ended until 1888, when Princess Isabel, daughter of Dom Pedro II, declared it extinct by means of the Lei Áurea (Golden Law).
In 1867, Castro Alves left Recife towards Bahia, where he wrote his drama play "Gonzaga". Later he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he met influent people like José de Alencar, Francisco Otaviano and Machado de Assis, from whom he got moral support.
After that, he headed south to São Paulo to take courses at Sao Francisco Law School, only to meet important writers and politicians, such as Rui Barbosa, Joaquim Nabuco, Rodrigues Alves, Afonso Pena and Bias Fortes. In November 11 1868, while hunting in the surroundings of São Paulo, he got his left ankle hurt with a gunshot, which ended up resulting in the amputation of his feet. Not much later, Castro Alves got tuberculosis, a very common disease in Sao Paulo at that time due to the dark and untidy pubs around town and chilly wheather, which forced him to return to his home land, Bahia, where and died on July 6, 1871, in the city of Salvador.
[edit] Poetry
Castro Alves stands in the late-Romantic aesthetic and is deeply influenced by the work of the French poet Victor Hugo in a movement called condoreirismo, which is marked by the introspection of the Romantic period with a social and humanitarian concern. These concerns led him to the incipient Abolitionism and Republicanism, of whose causes he was one of the foremost representatives.
His poetry is more optimist in tone then early romantic poets and is marked by more sensual and physical images and less aetereal then the usual to the Romantic Aesthetic. He was not attached to the (sometimes official) indigenism shown by José de Alencar or Gonçalves Dias, nor had the mal-du-siècle aesthetic of Álvares de Azevedo, therefore his work is usually considered as late-romantic, tending to the later Realist movement.
Among his best known works are: "Espumas Flutuantes" (Floating Foams), "Gonzaga ou A Revolução de Minas" (Gonzaga or the Revolution of Minas), "Cachoeira de Paulo Afonso", "Vozes D'África" (Voices from Africa), "O Navio Negreiro" (The Slave Ship).
