I INTRODUCTORY--THE MILIEU AND THE RACIAL BLEND--PORTUGUESE TRADITION, AFRICAN AND NATIVE CONTRIBUTION--LINGUISTIC MODIFICATION--NATIONALISM AND LITERATURE--PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE--PHASES OF BRAZILIAN LITERATURE 3 II PERIOD OF FORMATION (1500-1750) 28 III AUTONOMOUS DEVELOPMENT (1750-1830) 53 IV ROMANTIC TRANSFORMATION (1830-1870) 72 V CRITICAL, NATURALIST REACTION, (1870-1900) PARNASSIANS, SYMBOLISTS, ETC. 102 PART TWO REPRESENTATIVE PERSONALITIES I CASTRO ALVES 129 II MACHADO DE ASSIS 142 III JOSÉ VERISSIMO 165 IV OLAVO BILAC 188 V EUCLYDES DA CUNHA 210 VI OLIVEIRA LIMA 222 VII GRAÇA ARANHA 234 VIII COELHO NETTO 248 IX FRANCISCA JULIA 261 X THE NEWER WRITERS 227 SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 293 INDEX 299 PART ONE AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF BRAZILIAN LITERATURE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY The Milieu and the Racial Blend--Portuguese Tradition, African and Native Contributions--Linguistic Modification--Nationalism and Literature--Problems of the Future--Phases of Brazilian Literature. I Although Brazil was not discovered until the opening year of the sixteenth century, the name had long hovered in the mediaeval consciousness together with that of those other mysterious islands which peopled the maps and the imaginations of the dark, fantastic days. Down from the Greeks had come the legend of an Atlantis, which, through the centuries assumed changing shapes, losing soon its status as continent and becoming an island. Thus, in a map of the Atlas Medicis, dating back to 1351, there is registered a Brazil. The name varied from Braçir, Brazil, Brazylle to O’Brasile, and the position shifted with equal instability; now the mythical island was near the Azores, now near the western coast of the British Isles. Charles Squire, in his _The Mythology of the British Islands_,[1] relates that according to legend, the gods having lost their celestial dwelling, deliberated upon some earthly substitute. Into their discussion came a paradise beyond the sea,--a western island variously described as a land of promise, of felicity and of youth, and as the “island of Breasal” or “Hy-Breasail.” It is supposed that some of the early discoverers, imagining that they had come upon the island Eden, named it Brazil in much the same way that Columbus named the Indies, considering his quest for India at last successful.