Tomas Antonio Gonzaga

Gonzaga, Tomás António 

Born Aug. 11, 1744, in Porto, Portugal; died February 1810, in Mozambique. Brazilian poet.

Gonzaga held legal posts in Portugal and, after 1782, in Brazil. He was involved in an anticolonialist plot for which he was sentenced to death in 1789, but his sentence was commuted to exile in Mozambique. He wrote the collection of poems Marilia de Dirceu. The poems in the first part of this collection (1792) are characterized by a sense of immediacy and simplicity of form. Gonzaga’s pastoral lyrics captured a popular quality, and many of his verses became folk songs. In the second, deeply tragic part (1799), which was written in prison, preromantic elements are noticeable. The anonymous satirical poem Chilean Letters (1788–89), which is ascribed to Gonzaga, is a brilliant example of enlightened satire. A. S. Pushkin translated one of Gonzaga’s poems (“From the Portuguese”) into Russian.

WORKS

Obras completas, vols. 1–2. Rio de Janeiro, 1957.
In Russian translation:
Liry: Chiliiskie pis’ma. Foreword by I. Tynianova. Moscow, 1964.

REFERENCES

Alekseev, M. P. “Pushkin i brazil’skii poet.” Nauchnyi biulleten’ LGU, 1947, nos. 14–15.
Terterian, I. A. “Antikolonial’naia satira T. A. Gonzagi i ee rol’ ν razvitii realizma ν Brazilii.” Izv. AN SSSR: OLIa, 1961, vol. 20, issue 4.

I. A. TERTERIAN