Castro Alves

Castro Alves' parents: Clélia Brasília da Silva Castro and physician Antônio José Alves

The son of physician Antônio José Alves and Clélia Brasília da Silva Castro, Antônio Frederico de Castro Alves was born in the Cabaceiras farm,[lower-alpha 1] at ten o'clock in the morning, on Sunday, 14 March 1847.[8][9] The poet had the family nickname of "Cecéu".[10][lower-alpha 2] He spent his early childhood in Bahia's hinterlands, which made him "keep an indelible impression" for the rest of his life, in the words of Afrânio Peixoto.[1]

He was cared for by the maid Leopoldina, who told him the stories and legends of the sertão, and her son Gregório would become Alves' page.[15] He attended primary school in São Félix.[16] Together with his older brother, he had his initial classes with a teacher and healer named José Peixoto da Silva, and Aristides Mílton remembers that he was a colleague of both in the city of Cachoeira in the class of the schoolmaster Antônio Frederico Loup.[17][18]

He kept his first childhood love, Leonídia Fraga, from the period, in the words of Archimimo Ornelas: "he had met her as a child, in Curralinho, when they both played in the meadows". Ornelas attributes the poet's verses to this memory: "When childhood flowed happily, aimlessly (...) In my childhood yours was reflected / I kissed your soft, tiny hands. / You had a flutter of divine wings... / You were — the Angel of Faith!…”; he would meet her again twice.[19]

House where Castro Alves was born, on Cabaceiras Farm, owned by his grandfather

The Ginásio Baiano of the Baron of Macaúbas, where Castro Alves studied

In 1854, when the family moved to the province's capital, they initially went to live in a sobrado where Júlia Fetal, a victim of a crime of passion, had lived. Fetal was murdered by her fiancé in 1848 at the age of twenty. The boy Antônio Frederico had heard there stories of the ghosts that lived in the residence.[20] Adelaide, who would become the poet's favorite sister, was born there.[21] The residence was at Rua do Rosário, No. 1, but in the following year they moved again to Rua do Paço, No. 47. Castro Alves studied at Colégio Sebrão at this time.[22] He remained at this school for two years.[8]

In 1858, along with his brothers, Alves went to the Ginásio Baiano, owned by the famous educator Abílio César Borges, the Baron of Macaúbas. There, he found a fertile cultural environment, in Peixoto's record: "...a literary atmosphere, produced by the 'oiteiros', or soirées, then in fashion, art parties, music, poetry, recitation of verses and speeches, which would seduce him" and that this made him reveal his talent very early: "our poet revealed himself, perhaps before the age of thirteen, at that age for sure, from which the first preserved compositions date".[1] In fact, the years 1859 to 1861 are the dates of his first verses.[16][lower-alpha 3]

Desembargador Souza Pitanga, in a lecture given in Rio de Janeiro in 1918, remembering his colleague Plínio de Lima, recorded the atmosphere at Ginásio Baiano: "...this gentle and hospitable manor of beautiful letters, where a cheerful and vivacious legion of aspirants to future was going to receive the eucharistic bread of knowledge from the lips of a plethora of teaching priests". There, according to him, was "a shady grove of leafy mango trees, where cicadas sang in chorus" and "the late Director Dr. Abílio César Borges, dominating with his erect bearing and noble manners, a legion of minors who were made up of young men of 18 years old to even 7 years old children". Pitanga recalled that, among the professors, Ernesto Carneiro Ribeiro, Eduardo Frederico Alexander and Antônio Damásio stood out; among the contemporary students were Aristides Milton, Antônio Alves de Carvalhal, Odorico Mendes, Ruy Barbosa and the three Castro Alves brothers.[23][lower-alpha 4]

The death of Castro Alves' mother in 1859 was the beginning of the family's losses. Clélia Brasília was "victimized by lung weakness" and did not resist.[24] Taken by violent commotion and revealing the beginning of emotional problems, his brother José Antônio then threatened to commit suicide, trying to throw himself out of a window.[25]

In 1861, while still a student at Colégio Baiano, he published verses in several newspapers in honor of the "master of the heart", Antônio de Macedo Costa, who had died. The "poetic tribute" was composed of eight sextiles with seven syllables.[26]

The young Castro Alves

On 25 January 1862, shortly after his father's marriage to Maria Ramos Guimarães,[27] and at only fourteen years old, Castro Alves moved to the city of Recife with his older brother,[28] in order to enroll in a preparatory course attached to the Faculty of Law of that capital, with the intention of joining it.[16] He soon joined the social activities of the academic youth, as Afrânio Peixoto said: "Then the hectic and loose life of the academy, where talented young men struggled to appear, the generous nature of Castro Alves, who from an early age aspired to the glory that the great social causes give, made him a tribune and a poet who did not shy away from public sessions at the Faculty, in student societies, in theatre audiences, incited from the outset by the applause and ovations he had begun to receive, and went on in a crescendo of apotheosis".[1]

As soon as he arrived in Recife, he lived with his brother in the Convent of São Francisco and from there they moved to a dormitory on Rua do Hospício, where his future brother-in-law and his great friend Augusto Álvares Guimarães, would later also live. Xavier Marques remembers the two brothers, then: José Antônio reading Álvares de Azevedo to the madmen in the asylum and he, Castro Alves, "playing billiards, drawing and writing verses".[28] Luís Cornélio dos Santos, another great friend who would accompany him until his death, reported that they then went to live in a remote neighborhood of Recife, on the banks of the Capibaribe, where he often followed him on walks in which he read poems from a notebook that, later, got lost. Santos recorded about that period: "This boy's soul was of an unsurpassable purity; his intelligence had flashes that dazzled like lightning — Hugo as a child must have been like that" and about the lost notebook: "That little book was lost; not one of those stanzas figure today in the rich treasure of poems he bequeathed us".[28]

About this period, Antônio Loureiro de Souza recorded: "He lives, and well lived, his time, agitated between love and poetry – the reason for his existence".[29] In Recife, he became very close to his fellow countryman Plínio de Lima: "They wrote the same newspapers together and had the same literary orientation against the current led by Tobias Barreto".[30] Afrânio Peixoto described his appearance: "At the time he was a handsome young man, with a slender build, pale complexion, large lively eyes, black and thick hair, a powerful and harmonious voice, irreproachably dressed in black, gifts and manners that impressed the crowd, imposing himself to the admiration of men and to women, inspiring the most tender feelings".[1]

In May 1863, he gave an example of his precocity by publishing in Recife A Canção do Africano (in the first issue of the newspaper Primavera). Afrânio Peixoto said that in Recife, or perhaps before, he found his "vocation as an abolitionist" and concluded: "If 'there were no precursors', no one would be more precocious either": he was only sixteen years old.[10] But in March he had taken the college entrance exam, failing in geometry: "he had always been interested in mathematics", in the words of Afrânio Peixoto, who, however, justified this failure with the fact that the Chambers closed at the time, thus making it impossible for him to receive the notice to carry out a conditional enrollment, as a listener. Not everything was lost from this period: the poems Pesadelo, Meu segredo and Cansaço were preserved, in addition to A Canção do Africano.[28]

The Portuguese actress Eugênia Infante da Câmara had come to Brazil in 1858, starting a tour of the country with the Companhia Dramática Furtado Coelho, traveling from south to north.[31] She was not considered a pretty woman, but she was endowed with "an extraordinary grace, intelligent, educated, nimbly nervous and vibrant, full of seductions and singular whims". The poet was just over fifteen years old when he saw her for the first time, presenting the play "Dalila" at the São João Theatre in Salvador, and then he fell in love with her. He would see her again in Recife years later as the main actress of the company.[32] Afrânio Peixoto suggested that the beginning of the passion that would have so much influence in his life possibly dates from this time.[33][lower-alpha 5]

On 9 February 1864, his brother José Antônio, who had gone mad months before, committed suicide.[27][lower-alpha 6] Faced with so many adversities, and due to lung problems, Castro Alves returned to Bahia. Thus he had several absences from college, whose enrollment he had finally managed to get, and failed his first year; suffering from tuberculosis would give him the verses entitled Mocidade e Morte (whose original title would be O Tísico), where he wrote:[33]

"I feel in me the bubbling of the genius / I see beyond a radiant future" but "I have now for future — the earth / For glory — nothing, for love — the grave..."

The old Faculty of Law of Recife

He only returned to Recife on 18 March 1865, accompanied by Fagundes Varella; on 10 August, he recited O Sábio at the Faculty of Law and enlisted on the 19th of that month in the Academic Battalion of Volunteers for the Paraguayan War,[22] but failed the health exam. In the same year, he began composing Os Escravos, and met a girl a year older, Idalina.[27] She was "the first woman who gave herself completely to the seductive power of Castro Alves", in the words of Ornelas, who reported that the young man met his lover in the Santo Amaro neighborhood, and with her went to live "in a little white house at Rua do Lima, under the curious eyes of the neighborhood",[35] information partly contradicted by Regueira Costa, who reported a visit to his friend at the time: "I went to find him (...in the house in which he lived, obeying the natural influence of his temperament) living with his charming Idalina, preparing the poem for Os Escravos", who told her, then: "I'm very pleased with my neighbors, he told me, over there — the crazy ones... (referring to Dr. Ramos' hospice) — on the right, the dead... (alluding to the Public Cemetery)".[36] Idalina was not completely ignorant like "the vast majority of these unfortunate women: uneducated and without sensitivity"; she could play the piano and sing, which denoted a wealthy background, and entertains him with her "alabastrine pale throat".[35]

Castro Alves allowed himself such amorous "distractions", as well as dedication to poetry, due to the fact that he was repeating the classes of the previous year, which he had already studied; however, he was approved with reservations, perhaps because of the persecution of a Portuguese teacher who did not like him.[37] Again in the company of Fagundes Varella, he returned to Bahia, on 16 December;[27] with that there was a complete break with his lover, and perhaps he never saw Idalina again.[35] Years later he wrote about this romance, the poem Aves de Arribação.[37] That same year, he saw Leonídia Fraga again, his childhood love and who had been "promised" to him; if in the poetry that recalls his childhood he called her "Angel of Faith", in new verses he recalled the second meeting of the woman who, in the hinterlands, was always waiting for him:[19]

"Then I saw you again… on the white front, / Radiated among the most frank pearls / The haughty crown that beauty braids!… (…) For you I dreamed — triumphant — the palm. / Oh — Angel of Charity!…"

His father, morally and physically shaken by the death of his eldest son José Antônio, who according to relatives and acquaintances would have more talent than his famous brother and in whom his father had great hopes, had even more fragile health, he could not resist the epidemic of beriberi that was raging in Salvador and died on 24 January 1866, leaving the poet and his surviving brothers as orphans; Castro Alves at a "dangerous age, in which directions are delineated, existences are guided".[24] In Recife, two days after his loss, his landlord published an ad in the Diário de Pernambuco asking him for overdue rent: "As long as Mr. academic Antônio de Castro Alves does not pay 63 thousand réis of rent for the house where he lived on Rua dos Coelhos, he will see his name in this newspaper".[26] Still in 1866, he fell in love with Ester and Simmy, two Jewish sisters, daughters of the merchant Isaac Amzalack, who lived close to the family home, in Sodré; Alves wrote the poem A Hebreia, which he sent to the two sisters with the dedication "to the most beautiful one", provoking a dispute between them.[38][lower-alpha 7]

Eugênia Câmara and Tobias Barreto

Eugênia Câmara

Since 1864, Castro Alves' family had found a photograph of Eugênia Câmara in his luggage, and began to worry about her; Afrânio Peixoto and Xavier Marques disagree, however, on the precise date of when the love began, although agreeing at the age of nineteen and when Castro Alves was already "the most beautiful man imaginable. Tall, strong, slender, with a slightly dark complexion, wide forehead, black eyes, slanted and lashed, straight nose, sensual lips and, on his powerful head, the black top, dark, lustrous, of a thick and long hair, whose seduction he knew" and already had a solid intellectual background that had given him great popularity after "shaking" the Faculty of Law when he recited "O Século". He starred in one of the most vibrant duels in Brazilian literary history against his colleague Tobias Barreto.[31]

Castro Alves and Tobias Barreto were friends until then and considered the two greatest expressions of Recife's academy; but Barreto, ten years older, was seen as nervous, with an unsociable temperament — contrary to Castro Alves, who was seen with "a gentle nature that attracted those who knew him".[31] The dispute between the two took place when Barreto fell in love with the actress Adelaide Amaral, from the same company as Eugênia Câmara, and started to defend her to the detriment of the latter. Thus, two parties were formed in the city in which each group defended its muses, about what Jorge Amado later remarked: "As if from then on the plays, dramas and tragedies do not end when the curtain falls. The performance continues in the audience, through the two parties and the two leaders. Insults, applause and boos, verses and rants, are the complement of the theatrical spectacles of that time".[31][lower-alpha 9]

After a night in which Tobias and his allies booed Eugênia, Castro Alves improvised in an overwhelming way in the reply and, days later, in a new confrontation, a new victory over his rival with "verses that were memorable", where Alves alluded to the fact that Adelaide was married and therefore unfaithful: "I'm a Hebrew, I don't kiss the plants / of Potiphar's wife…", leading the dispute to the pages of the press and to a resounding defeat for Barreto. Castro Alves thus conquered his mistress and the public and, having already lost his father, he also lost "the modesty of his amorous whims".[31]

Such was his passion and insistence that Eugênia Câmara had nothing to do but give in to his harassment. She then lived with the wealthy bookkeeper Verissimo Chaves, who paid for her luxuries. With one lover abandoned for another, she did not follow the Company when it left on its tour to Bahia, and together with then young Castro Alves went to live in a small house on Rua do Barro, on the way to Jaboatão. Castro Alves thus missed his vacation and composed the play Gonzaga there, translated works and even started writing a novel (which was lost). They stayed in the city until May 1867, when they both left for Salvador.[31]

Castro Alves' self portrait

On 10 February 1868, Castro Alves embarked with Eugênia for Rio de Janeiro, aboard the steamer Picardie,[lower-alpha 10] for a brief stop before heading to São Paulo.[45] In Rio, carrying a recommendation letter from Fernandes da Cunha, Alves introduced himself to the renowned writer José de Alencar, to whom he read the sketches of "A Cascata de Paulo Afonso" (provisional title of the poem).[10] This meeting resulted in the article "Um Poeta" by Alencar, published on 22 February in the newspaper Correio Mercantil.[1] Alencar also presented Castro Alves to Machado de Assis with a letter of recommendation in which he indicated the "Poet of Slaves" with the following words: "Be the Virgil of young Dante, lead him along the pathless paths where one goes to disappointment, indifference and finally glory, which are the three maximum circles of the divine comedy of talent".[46][lower-alpha 11]

During Castro Alves' stay in Rio de Janeiro, the Empire of Brazil achieved a victory in the Paraguayan War with the successful Passage of Humaitá.[lower-alpha 12] A large crowd rushed to the streets, celebrating the achievement, and Castro Alves went out onto the balcony of the Diário do Rio de Janeiro newspaper (at Rua do Ouvidor, No. 97), where he recited "one of his rare warrior poems, verses of circumstance, applauded by the crowd, praised by the press" in Peixoto's words, but that Alves himself would later write in the manuscript in which he recorded the poem: "do not publish it" (a recommendation not followed by the editors of his work).[lower-alpha 13] It was also in one of the halls of this newspaper that he had scenes from Gonzaga, his play, presented to a small audience of intellectuals, which the newspaper would later announce had been "laureated by Mr. Castro Alves". Such successes filled him with pride, despite pretending to be humble; in March he went with Eugênia to the capital of São Paulo, where he gained admiration from the youth, and the jealousy of figures such as Joaquim Nabuco.[48]

In São Paulo, Castro Alves participated in the América Lodge of Freemasonry, of which Ruy Barbosa was an active member, who, in it, issued a decree forcing its members to immediately release the slaves that belonged to them.[49] The São Paulo lodge was already a prominent institution on the political scene, and the participation of young students from the Faculty of Law of São Paulo followed their participation in the "Ateneu", its student body, in which Alves had been a member of the "literature commission", of which Joaquim Nabuco was also a member.[50] In academic times Ruy Barbosa and Castro Alves were also part of the Bucha Paulista, a secret legal society originally created based on the German Burschenschaft, intended to support students in precarious situations but which, in São Paulo, gained a social nature that transcended the academic environment and came to rise to power in the country through mutual support, to the point that three of the five participants in the commission that prepared the draft of Brazil's 1891 Constitution were members of the Bucha.[51]

In São Paulo, Alves also attended the third year of college where, although without great dedication to study, he managed to pass. The situation with Eugênia continued in the midst of crises marked by fights, separations and reconciliations; she continued to perform with her play Gonzaga.[52] The success that the city had offered him, according to Archimimo Ornelas, made him "neglect Eugênia" and she, "to take revenge, would look for other lovers", which Alves pretended to ignore because Eugênia still was constant to him. In October she still acted in the play and there was a "truce" which, however, gave way to new and strong fights due to the rumors about her unfaithful conduct, culminating in the definitive separation: "the final episode was one of unexpected violence. The actress pointed to the door…"[31]

Hunting accident and foot amputation

The poet's signature in Ode ao 2 de Julho, recited in São Paulo

Faced with the emotional exhaustion caused by the constant call to public presentations and the passionate drama with Eugênia, the poet became the victim of "profound depression" and sought moments of solitude.[31] "I didn't read, I didn't write; I walked around, smoked, went hunting, without even firing a shot", said Afrânio Peixoto.[52]

On 1 November 1868,[lower-alpha 14] according to Peixoto, recalling the worsening of Castro Alves' tuberculosis: "he had gone to spend a day on the outskirts of Brás, and in the afternoon of that day he had taken his shotgun and gone out into the countryside. When crossing a ditch,[lower-alpha 15] with the jump, the gun turned downwards fired and the lead load hit Alves' left foot. He was able to drag himself to the house of his friend and correspondent, the doctor from Bahia, Lopes dos Anjos, [who] then took him to the town house, on Rua do Imperador, next to the current No. 33. In addition to this doctor and friend, the surgeon Cândido Borges Monteiro, the Baron of Itaúna and president of the province, also helped him. But the wound worsened, with no hope of cure, and the old pulmonary ailments woke up, impressive".[52]

During that period, his friend Luís Cornélio, who lived in the Court, called him there, where the medical resources were better. On 19 March 1869, he finally embarked in Santos, accompanied by a friend. To those who he had not been able to say goodbye in person, he did so through a note published in the newspaper Ypiranga that had previously announced his departure and, on the 30th, he published a moving letter of thanks to his friends in the city of São Paulo in the Correio Paulistano.[54]

Castro Alves arrived in Rio de Janeiro on 21 March; there he underwent an amputation, in which surgeons and professors from the Faculty of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro, Andrade Pertence and Mateus de Andrade, acted: they cut off his lower left limb without any anesthesia.[55] The pulmonary situation, aggravated by several haemoptysis, made the use of chloroform (then the only anesthetic means) impossible: he had only a handkerchief to bite on in order to mitigate the pain.[56] Peixoto narrated that he said, disguising the pain with humor: "Cut it, cut it, doctor... I will be left with less matter than the rest of humanity".[57]

The surgery, performed in the first days of June, was reported by the São Paulo newspaper Ypiranga on 21 July; the long convalescence began in which the poet, now wearing a wooden prosthesis, imagined reaching a "new spring". During the period when he stayed with Luís Cornélio and his wife, his house became the "Petit Salon", frequented by young artists and intellectuals, and he had brief passions like those of Cândida and Laura, who he recalled in the poem "Os Anjos da Meia-Noite" (The Midnight Angels).[57][lower-alpha 16]

But he was still moved by the love he ended with Eugênia Câmara and, on 17 November, he wrote the verses of "Adeus" to the actress: "Goodbye! Forever goodbye! The voice of the winds / Calls me beating against the rocks, / I'm leaving... soon the ocean / Will throw millions of waves between us..."; She wrote a reply to this poem, published in 1910 by Xavier Marques: "Goodbye, brother of this soul, I say goodbye to you! / But let me avoid that never! — / May heaven be compassionate to my prayers / And one day yours and my woes will cease!" and "Yes, God illuminated your forehead / With a divine ray of genius! And glory!.. / Live, dream, sing, this horizon!... / Brazil wants your name in its history" and concludes "Goodbye! If one day fate / Makes us meet / As a sister or as a lover / Always! Always! You will find me".[59] After staying with his family, together with friends, Castro Alves embarked for Bahia on 25 November 1869; when sailing the Guanabara Bay, he had the idea for the title of the book he planned to publish there: Espumas Flutuantes (Floating Foams).[57]

Ester Amzalack, one of the "Hebrew" sisters courted by the poet

Augusto Guimarães, brother-in-law and great friend of Castro Alves

Adelaide, his favorite sister, whom he called "Sinhá"

Castro Alves' arrival in Salvador, in an account transcribed by Archimimo Ornelas, translated his physical and moral decay: "It was a moving scene when he entered his father's house, being received by his stepmother and the young sisters who adored him. He left strong, erect, full of confidence and audacity, he returned bloodless, crippled, sick in the chest, with a soul saturated with bitterness".[19] Surrounded by family love and friends, he found the Jewish women who had inspired him one day, and Esther was now engaged. He pretended to be devastated by this and, through the window of the house, when he saw them pass, he pretended to stab himself in the chest with a paper dagger, to which they, finding it funny, made a sign to him not to lose hope.[24]

On 29 January, he left for Bahia's hinterlands one last time, on a boat trip that "split the waves of the Paraguaçu in search of the deep solitude of the deserts, to feed, like Saul, the despair of my spirit, and revive this blood exhausted and impoverished by sadness and suffering", as he recorded in a letter to Luiz Cornélio; He then left, together with his brother-in-law Augusto, for Curralinho, where, according to Archimimo Ornelas, he found himself influenced by the death of Allan Kardec, which occurred at the end of the previous year and which had had great repercussions in those days, and produced verses in which he questioned life after death.[19][lower-alpha 17]

Fernando Correia da Silva recorded that, "on the Santa Isabel do Orobó farm,[lower-alpha 18] Castro Alves reunited with Leonídia Fraga, his boyhood fiancée and today the graceful maiden who had always waited for him. Rekindle the first passion? Why, if death is around?"[11] Castro Alves recorded in verses: "Today is the third milestone in this history. / Calcinated by the lightning of glory, / I described love, mocked eternity... (...) softness of the lilies… / Angel of charity…"[19] About those days he wrote: "Perhaps you have servants and lovers beyond, / A palace instead of a hut. / And here you only have a guitar and a kiss, / And the burning fire of ideal desire / In the virgin breasts of the unfortunate mountain woman!" — and Correia da Silva concluded: "Leonídia, the 'unhappy mountain woman', will be waiting for you forever. She will end up going crazy".[11] Ornelas said that "Leonídia was not reciprocated as she deserved" and she "undoubtedly loved the poet" and, despite having married later, when she went crazy in her crises, her memory returned, as Afrânio Peixoto recorded: "Divine love, who survived two deaths, of the beloved heart and of the loving reason".[19]

From the hinterlands, he sent his future brother-in-law Álvaro Guimarães the manuscripts of the poems that were to be included in the publication of Os Escravos; the latter asked Guimarães to limit the number of poems, and said that he would remove the extensive translation he had made of Victor Hugo from there, as well as having sent copies for analysis by his friends Amâncio and Plínio de Lima, in Recife.[62] On 14 October 1870, weakened by tuberculosis, Castro Alves asked his friend José Joaquim da Palma to "lend him his voice" to recite the verses of Deusa Incruenta - A Imprensa as Antithesis to 'Terribilis Dea' verses by Pedro Luís, a libel against the war; he recited it the next day at the São João Theatre, receiving a standing ovation from the audience.[63] In November 1870, Espumas Flutuantes was finally launched.[64] In its opening was the dedication to his dead family members: "To the memory of my father, my mother and my brother".[16]

In Salvador, his sister Adelaide introduced him to Agnese Trinci Murri, an Italian woman who had settled in the capital and came to be a lyrical singer living with her mother, giving piano and singing lessons;[lower-alpha 19] her beauty enchanted Castro Alves, and she did not give in to his verses; she wrote him a twelve-page letter; at Sodré's house he tried to steal a kiss from her, which she avoided saying: "a woman kissed, a woman dishonored" — these outbursts would be the "result of the advancing illness".[65] On 9 February 1871, he dedicated the verses of No Meeting du Comité du Pain to the campaign that was being carried out in the capital of Bahia to raise funds for the mutilated French, orphans and widows during the Franco-Prussian War.[66] He made, at a soiree on 21 March 1871, a public declaration of his love for Agnese, to which she responded by singing a passage from Il Guarany by Carlos Gomes saying "Tutti dobbiamo amar": the feeling, even platonic, was reciprocal.[65]

This unrequited love marked the poet's final production; in an example of how she inspired him, they went on an equestrian ride together to Barra Lighthouse under the moonlight, in May 1871, which he portrayed in the verses of Noite de Maio where, because Agnese compared the moon to a mirror, in the sixth part he described the scene thus: "The ethereal mirror / From the clouds rises / Reflects in joy / Your face".[67] During the festivities of the 2nd of July (the maximum date in Bahia) she was invited to sing, but she did so only after consulting the poet, who was already seriously ill; with his death Agnese was confused by the opinion of the society she served, and stopped watching over her beloved.[65][lower-alpha 20]

Writer Múcio Teixeira, in his 1896 biography of Castro Alves, recounted his last hint of vanity: "On the eve of the fatal day, after repeated pleas, they gave him a mirror. He contemplated himself for a few moments, visibly troubled, and stammered: "I am no longer the same... How death disfigures its victims!" He handed it over, painfully disappointed, and said: "No one else can enter here. I want you to remember what I was, not what I am!... As soon as I die, cover me with flowers and close my coffin immediately".[69] A report published in 1921 by the magazine Bahia Illustrada brought the family record of the poet's death:[70]

"He had retired the day before (29 July), writes the poet's sister, earlier than usual; a cloud of sadness and discouragement overshadowed his large expressive eyes and in vain his brothers and friends tried to call hope to that desolate soul: futile! In his mind, the figure of death began to project itself...

He then wanted his bed to be taken to the hall where he used to spend his days, and he was carried by his brother and friends, placed near a window, because, he said, «he wanted to die looking at the infinite blue, that infinite that will soon collect his last aspirations».

Days of atrocious suffering followed, interspersed only by brief moments of relief, and so cruel were they that on the eve of his death, at night, he asked the time and was answered — 12. [he replied] «Is it possible, my God, yet another day of pain?...» And there was so much distress in this exclamation, so much so that, having his cold hand between the hands of his sisters, he felt that a tear had fallen on it and then, squeezing them, he said: — «The warm beads I felt...» — a reminiscence that came to him at the time, of one of his last poems — "A Virgem dos Últimos Amores".

On the following day — 6 July 1871 — at 10 am, the enlightened and virtuous father Turíbio Tertuliano Fiúza administered the last sacraments. The last moments were approaching and still in all the lucidity of spirit, on one of the occasions when one of the sisters (Adelaide), in anguish, passes a handkerchief over her damp forehead, he, with an almost extinct voice, murmured to her: — «Keep this handkerchief... with it you wiped the sweat of my agony...» This was without great cravings or death rattles. Now motionless, his gaze fixed on that patch of sky that could be seen from the open window in front of the bed in which he was lying — little by little the light of that gaze was dimming, until it was completely diffused in the shadows of Eternity... It was half past three in the afternoon…"

Alves family home (Solar do Sodré), where the poet died

Castro Alves' last love: the Italian singer Agnese Trinci Murri, 1870

Múcio Teixeira, remembering the reverence that one has in Florence in front of the house where Dante lived, or in Caracas next to the pantheon where the remains of Simón Bolívar lie, preached that "Bahia's population, without distinction of sex or class, should go on the 6th of July of each year, in a spontaneous procession of imposing majesty, stop for a few moments in front of the sobrado number 24 on Rua Sodré, where on the 6th of July 1871, at 3 ½ o'clock in the afternoon, Castro Alves expired, at only 24 years".[71]

Castro Alves was buried in the Campo Santo Cemetery, in a tomb in which a "pirate skull" was inserted which, in the words of a specialist, "is an allusion to death and the transience of life". His remains were, in the 20th century, transferred to the monument in his honor in the square that bears his name.[72] The burial took place the day after the death (7 July) and he was buried in tomb 527. In 1874, the remains were transferred to the mausoleum at block 1, belonging to his stepmother, Maria Ramos Guimarães, who had purchased it for her husband's tomb.[73] His sister Adelaide, who died in Rio de Janeiro on 22 September 1940, was the "faithful caretaker of the poet's memory, preserving his originals, informing about his life", recorded Afrânio Peixoto, concluding that "the fame of Castro Alves owes her a lot".[21]

In 1971, the centenary of the writer's death took place. Despite the opposition of a grandnephew of the poet who advocated the construction of a pantheon for him, the then mayor of Salvador Antônio Carlos Magalhães decided to simply transfer his remains to the monument at Praça Castro Alves. This actually took place, without any special ceremony, on 6 July of that year.[74] After the consecration received in the then imperial capital at the age of only twenty-one, and those that followed in "less than eight years, silly years, that between adolescence and youth, 'Castro Alves left a work without equal in our literatures'", according to Afrânio Peixoto, who compared him to his contemporaries who would later stand out, such as Ruy Barbosa, Joaquim Nabuco, Rodrigues Alves or Afonso Pena: had they died, like him, at the age of twenty-four, "not even the memory of the names would have remained with them and during that time the other gained lasting fame".[1]

The former Largo de São Bento with the São João Theatre; since 1881 it is the Castro Alves Square

Teatro Castro Alves, the main concert hall in Bahia and a national heritage of Brazil[95]

On 6 July 1881, ten years after the poet's death, the so-called Largo do Teatro, one of the main squares in Salvador, was renamed in his honor; in 1919 a statue was commissioned from the Italian sculptor Pasquale de Chirico; the monument was installed in the place where the "Fountain of Columbus" used to be and inaugurated on 6 July 1923; the statue, measuring 2.9 meters, is positioned on a pedestal (which gives it a total height of 11 meters) on the front of which is a sculpture of a couple of slaves, symbolizing their abolitionist struggle: Castro Alves Square is one of Salvador's symbols.[96] In reference to the square, Caetano Veloso paraphrased the verse by Castro Alves "The square is for the people, like the sky is for the condor" from O Povo ao Poder, paying him the tribute "Castro Alves Square belongs to the people / Like the sky belongs to the airplane".[97][98]

In 1895, the municipality of Curralinho was emancipated from Cachoeira; years later, the name of the city was changed to Castro Alves, in honor of the poet (sources differ as to whether it was by State Law No. 360 of 25 July 1900, or Law No. 790 of 25 June 1910).[2] In 1947, the Instituto Nacional do Livro, of the Ministry of Education and Culture, celebrated the centenary of the poet's birth with a large exhibition, which resulted in a commemorative book, bringing important documents that were part of the event.[30]

In 1948, at the suggestion of artists and intellectuals in Bahia, the then-deputy Antônio Balbino presented a bill for the construction of a theater in Praça 2 de Julho (better known as Campo Grande), following Adroaldo Ribeiro Costa's suggestion of naming the building after the poet, and expected to be completed in 1951. The original project would be in charge of the architects Alcides da Rocha Miranda and José de Souza Reis but, with Otávio Mangabeira assuming the state government, he passed the task to engineer Diógenes Rebouças, who started the work with a bold architecture. At the end of Mangabeira's term, Balbino was elected governor and, with an award-winning project, entrusted the work to José Bina Fonyat Filho and Humberto Lemos; the inauguration was scheduled to take place on 4 July 1958 but, five days before, a mysterious fire almost completely destroyed it. The attached but unaffected "Concha Acústica" was inaugurated in 1959, and Teatro Castro Alves underwent nine years of renovations until it was finally inaugurated on 4 March 1967, under Lomanto Júnior's governorship.[99] The "TCA", as it is known, has been part of Brazil's national heritage since 2013, listed by IPHAN.[100]

On 8 March 1971, the then governor of the state of Bahia Luís Viana Filho, as part of the homage to the poet on the centenary of his death, inaugurated the Castro Alves Historical Park in the city of Cabaceiras do Paraguaçu, in the former headquarters of the Cabaceiras Farm.[3] The park museum with a total area of 52 thousand square meters located in the center of the city.[101] According to the writer Edivaldo Boaventura, the space aimed to recall the poet's "birthplace and childhood scenarios".[102] Since 1977, the day of the poet's birth was considered, unofficially, as National Poetry Day and it was celebrated that way until, in 2015, senator Alvaro Dias proposed another date, this time honoring Carlos Drummond de Andrade; after this law was passed, his birthday ceased to be officially the date of poetry in Brazil.[103] In 2019, the third edition of the Pelourinho International Literary Festival (Flipelô) honored the poet.[104]

Monuments and sculptures

Statue of Castro Alves in Salvador

In addition to the statue of De Chirico in Salvador, other monuments honor the poet in Brazil. On Passeio Público in Rio de Janeiro there is a bronze bust of the poet, the work of sculptor Eduardo de Sá, inaugurated in 1917 and the main differentiator being the pedestal in marble of different colors.[105] In its first issue, without identifying the author, an article in the Rio de Janeiro magazine Bahia Illustrada criticized this work: "the bust of Castro Alves, found in Passeio Público, looks just as much like him as any of his ignored companions of the bohemia and student life of his time", and that the statue bears "no identity with his face", concluding that it is only known to be about the poet because it bears his name written in bronze.[106]

In 1947, in Recife, a bust was inaugurated in honor of the poet's centenary, a work carried out by the sculptor Celso Antônio de Menezes, located in Adolfo Cirne square, in front of the same Faculty of Law where Castro Alves once studied.[107] In 1948, the Brazilian sculptor Humberto Cozzo went to Italy where, in Florence, he created the statue of the "Poet of Liberty", financed by the Ação Cultural Castro Alves.[108] The sculptor, already established in the country, had won a competition to choose the statue, with the prize being a trip to Europe lasting a year, leaving in August of that year.[109] The contest ended in 1947, the year of the poet's centenary, and the meeting to choose the winner (in which Mateus Fernandes, Celita Vacani, Francisco Andrade, Almir Pinto, Honório Peçanha and Modestino Kanto also competed) was documented on film.[110] Cozzo would become one of the masters of the sculptor Mário Cravo, who, on his mother's side, was the poet's cousin.[111] Other sculptures honor the poet in various parts of the country. In the city of Jacobina, Praça da Matriz has a monument to the poet, restored in 2016.[112]

• Monuments and sculptures to Castro Alves
• 
  Statue in the municipality of Castro Alves, Bahia, with the first verse of O Navio Negreiro: "'Stamos em pleno mar" (We are in the middle of the sea)
• 
  Bust in Passeio Público, Rio de Janeiro
• 
  Bust in Ilhéus, Bahia

Birth centenary in 1947

Commemorative medal in silver

1947 was the centenary year of the poet's birth, and several events in his memory took place, especially in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, then the Federal District. In the previous year, the federal government held a contest for the postal stamp design commemorating the centenary, which the designer Alberto Lima won.[117]

The Ministry of Education and Health awarded medals bearing the poet's effigy on the front, and on the back the verses of his authorship: "Green and gold banner of my land, / That the Brazilian breeze kisses and sways, / Banner that in the sunlight represents / The divine promises of hope…", a work by engraver L. Campos.[118] The Ministry also held, in Rio de Janeiro, an Exhibition Commemorative of the Centenary of Castro Alves, directed by Augusto Meyer and started on 14 March.[119] In the same year, the city of Rio de Janeiro instituted an essay contest in several categories, such as the best biography of the poet or a novel set at some point in his life.[120]

In Salvador, there was a large program of events, which took place from 5 to 15 March 1947, which included lectures, a literary contest by the Academy of Letters of Bahia and a meeting of Academies of Letters, a biobibliographic exhibition by the Instituto Geográfica e Histórico da Bahia and finally closed with a gala ball at the Clube Bahiano de Tênis.[121] The ABL representative at the event was Pedro Calmon from Bahia.[122] The Brazilian Academy, in turn, held conferences on the writer, held by some of its members such as Clementino Fraga and Pedro Calmon, a campaign for the construction of a monument to the poet, and a biobibliographic exhibition in the halls of the Petit Trianon, its headquarters.[122]

"Castro Alves" cigarette: the poest's name was widely used

Castro Alves' influence was felt during his lifetime, as the literary historian José Marques da Cruz pointed out: "His poetry O Navio Negreiro was memorized by many, having contributed to the abolition of slavery, intensely, as it was recited in all theaters and halls (...) He was an abolitionist (before there was the abolitionist party) and republican".[42] In 1882, a parody of O Navio Negreiro was published in Rio de Janeiro, with the title A Canoa do Martinho, part of Political Satires and anonymously authored (it kept the signature of "Musset", one of the writers of predilection of Castro Alves).[123]

In his epic work of 1950, Canto Geral, the Chilean writer Pablo Neruda inserted Castro Alves among the liberators of America, in the poem "Castro Alves do Brasil" (IV Canto, poem 29), where he stated that Castro Alves was the "poet of our America" for having given the slaves a voice where "...in doors hitherto closed (...) fighting, freedom would enter" and, finally, ended with the verses: "leave me, poet of our America, / to crown your head with the laurels of the people. / Your voice joined the eternal and loud voice of men. / You sang well. You sang as one should sing".[124]

Jorge Amado reflected the poet not only in his work The ABC of Castro Alves, but also in his only play O Amor do Soldado.[125] In this 1947 work, the poet is the protagonist in his love for Eugênia Câmara, starting in 1866 the narrative that, in its nineteen scenes, presents several of the historical characters such as Joaquim Nabuco, Ruy Barbosa, Tobias Barreto, Antônio Borges da Fonseca and Fagundes Varela, in addition to Amado himself, who appears in interventions to explain the historical context; in this work Amado sought to show the relevance of Castro Alves' production in the social struggles of his time: abolition and republicanism.[126]

His popular acceptance made him one of the best known poets in the country, lending his name to public places, educational and cultural establishments, associations and even companies; it also appeared in cigarette and match brands; artists such as Benedito Irivaldo de Souza, known as Vado, performed more than five thousand theatrical presentations of O Navio Negreiro in São Paulo, which he took to schools and theaters in that state.[127]

Not only elite readers and artists appreciated Castro Alves, as he is a constant in the work of popular authors such as Rogaciano Leite, Bule-Bule or Rodolfo Coelho Cavalcante, who said he is "the greatest poet in the world of all times", in addition to a vast range of cordel literature dealing with the poet; historian and cordelist Franklin Maxado demonstrated that Alves had used Repente in his disputes with Tobias Barreto – and that the poet's influence on popular art was also reciprocal.[128]

Portuguese Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Castro Alves (original works in Portuguese)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Castro Alves.

• Castro Alves' biography at the official site of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (in Portuguese)
• Works by or about Castro Alves at Internet Archive
• Works by Castro Alves at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Espumas fluctuantes: poeias, Bahia, 1870, at the National Library of Portugal