Gon%C3%A7alves Dias
Antnio Gonalves Dias was a Brazilian Romantic poet, playwright, ethnographer, lawyer and linguist. A major exponent of Brazilian Romanticism and of the literary tradition known as Indianism, he is famous for writing Cano do exlio arguably the most wellknown poem of Brazilian literature , the short narrative poem IJucaPirama, the unfinished epic Os Timbiras, and many other nationalist and patriotic poems that would award him posthumously with the title of national poet of Brazil. He was also an avid researcher of Native Brazilian languages and folklore.
Antnio Gonalves Dias was born in Caxias on August 10, 1823, to a Portuguese father, Joo Manuel Gonalves Dias and a cafuza mother, Vicncia Ferreira. After completing his studies in Latin, French and Philosophy, he went in 1838 to Portugal to earn a degree in Law at the University of Coimbra. There he wrote his most remembered poem, Cano do exlio. He graduated in 1845 and returned to Brazil in the same year. He went to Rio de Janeiro, living there until 1854. There he began to write the drama Leonor de Mendona in 1846 and his first poetry book, Primeiros Cantos, in 1847. It was very wellreceived, and Alexandre Herculano wrote an article praising it. Dias finished his play Leonor de Mendona also in 1847, and tried to have it performed at the Conservatrio de Msica do Rio de Janeiro, but the play was not accepted.
Source: Wikipedia