Manuel Inácio da Silva Alvarenga (1749–1814) was a Brazilian poet. He had a life-long commitment to life-long learning and promoting civic values and educational reforms. Silva Alvarenga edited one of the first

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s in Brazil, ''O Patriota''.

Biography

Early Life

Silva Alvarenga was born out of wedlock in

Ouro Preto Ouro Preto (, ), formerly Vila Rica (, ), is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The city, a former Brazilian Gold Rush, colonial mining town located in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains, was designated a ...

and was

biracial The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...

. His mother was

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n and his father an "

indigent Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse

white musician." He was raised in

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

Education

In the early 1770s, he studied in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

. Silva Alvarenga was able to attend the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

in 1776 where he studied law. His father's friends encouraged his poetry and musical talents. After studying in Portugal, he moved back to Brazil, where he was part of the Ouro Preto Arcady. In 1782, he moved to Rio de Janeiro where he taught

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

and poetics in the position of Royal Professor.

Career

He became a founding member of the ''Sociedade Literária do Rio de Janeiro'' (Literary Society in Rio de Janeiro) in 1786. The society discussed issues ranging from the French Revolution to religion, where some members challenged religious

dogma Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...

and claimed that

miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...

s did not exist. Because the society was considered "subversive" he was imprisoned from 1794 to 1797. He died in Rio de Janeiro in 1814.

Poetry

Silva Alvarenga's poetry follows European Neoclassical aesthetics of the eighteenth century and is considered an Arcadian poet. His work is compared to

Tomás António Gonzaga Tomás António Gonzaga (11 August 1744c. 1810) was a Portuguese poet. One of the most famous Neoclassic writers in colonial Brazil, he was also the '' ouvidor'' and the ombudsman of the city of Ouro Preto (formerly "Vila Rica"), as well as t ...

and

Cláudio Manuel da Costa Cláudio Manuel da Costa (June 4, 1729 – July 4, 1789) was a Brazilian poet and musician, considered to be the introducer of Neoclassicism in Brazil. He wrote under the pen name Glauceste Satúrnio, and his most famous work is the epic poetry, ep ...

. Silva Alvarenga, along with other Brazilian Arcadians, have been credited with planting "the roots of a literary culture in a systematic sense" in Brazil. He was unique among contemporary Brazilian poets in using Brazil's own natural landscape in his work. He rarely included Africans in his own poetry and when he did, his depictions were considered negative by today's standards. Despite his personal background as a person of color, Silva Alvarenga, like many in his time, believed that black people were not "suitable subjects for poetry." ''O Desetor das Letras'' is a satire based on university reforms of 1772. His series of work, ''Glaura: poemas eroticos'' was originally published in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

. Many of the poems are very much part of the pastoral Arcady tradition, however, literary critics have identified "elements which foreshadow Brazilian

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

." *''

O Desertor das Letras O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), p ...

'' (1774) - heroic-comic poem *''Glaura'' (1799) – erotic poems

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarenga, Manuel Inacio Da Silva 1749 births 1814 deaths Brazilian male poets University of Coimbra alumni 18th-century Brazilian poets 18th-century male writers People from Ouro Preto