Sociedade Partenon Literário

The Parthenon Litterario dealt with a wide variety of polemic topics at the time.[16][45] As Guilhermino César put it, "its generous mentors wanted it spread to all domains of the intelligence, guiding letters and arts, mitigating social injustices, pointing directions to political organization."[46] A sample of the breadth of the group's interests was offered by Luciana Boeira in her analysis of the most debated topics in the period 1872–1873:[47]

• Identification of the main representatives of the Brazilian nationality in the literary field.
• Influence of the Pericles Century on literature and historiography.
• Identification with the most brilliant period in the history of Rome.
• Judgment of the merit of bloodshed in the struggle for freedom.
• Judgment of the means employed to achieve the ends.
• Identification of which of the forms of government of antiquity brought more prosperity, which most influenced modern times, and which was the ideal of freedom throughout history.
• Judgment on the merits of the Paraguayan invasion of Rio Grande do Sul in 1865.
• Comparative judgment of the merit of the life of the priest and the soldier.
• Judgment on the value of the crusades to modern life.
• Analysis of the institution of marriage from the Catholic viewpoint and judgment of the merit of the indissolubility of the bonds for the interests of modern society.
• Comparative judgment of the nobility and generosity of male and female passions and feelings.
• Identification of the best means of combating the influence of the Jesuits on education;
• The debate about the thesis of the immortality of the soul.
• Identification of the causes of the Ragamuffin War and judgment of its merit.
• Gender equality and judgment of their merit.

Overall, however, the society marked the history of Rio Grande do Sul primarily for its activity in the literary, educational, and abolitionist fields, for its interest in the appreciation of women and regionalism, as well as for its political influence.[14][19][48][49][50]

The Parthenon generation had been formed within a humanistic educational tradition, established in Brazil by the Jesuits and later by the regal classes. Although in the 1860s there was already a significant contingent of Protestants and a small minority of other faiths, the majority of the province's population was Catholic. The educational system, after the basic literacy phase, was divided into specific areas: Grammar (including Latin and Portuguese Literature), Rhetoric (History and Geography), Philosophy (Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics), and Experimental Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Natural history, Geometry, Drawing, Arithmetic, Trigonometry, and Algebra). Depending on the availability of masters, French and Greek classes could also be included in the curriculum. In these studies, there was a constant reference to authors of Greco-Roman antiquity, considered to be models, and for this reason, the literary production of the Parthenonists is rich in allusions to Classicism and is influenced by their oratory, literature, mythology, and their ethical and educational principles. Since Ancient Greece the cultivation of virtue was embedded in their educational system and considered fundamental to the formation of a "perfect citizen".[2]

Cover of O Vaqueano (1872) by Apolinário Porto-Alegre, in a 1927 edition

A more defined literary classicism appeared in Brazil at the end of the 18th century with the Neoclassicism writers, a school that left some marks in the first essays of southern literature, which only began in the 1830s, when the school was almost exhausted. The evolution was slow and local production would have to wait for the appearance of the Parthenon to establish itself definitively. Despite the strong classical heritage carried by its leading members, in terms of style, the Parthenon flourished primarily as a Romantic group, a movement that, in contrast to classical rationalism, restraint, impersonality, and universality, valued the individual, regional specificities, emotion, independence, and enthusiasm. It acted as a center of gravity around which a new interest in roots was articulated, by the origin myths, by local identity, history and its characteristic settings and types; structured new regionalist literature in the province and identified its place in the diversity of the Brazilian panorama; and set the direction for much of the intellectual, political and ideological activity of the society, with José de Alencar's work as one of the main literary models.[51][52][53]

Guilhermino César stated that through the pages of the society's magazine, it is possible to follow month by month the change in style and theme of the younger members of the entity, who are moving towards a nationalist and regionalist romanticism.[54] In the 19th century, the view of history as a linear and cumulative process predominated, and many of the classical ideals were maintained through new readings. Guilhermino César mentioned that in their idealization of regional types, the Parthenonists placed them in a kind of Creole Arcadia.[53]

However, in the early nineteenth century, the doctrine of art for art's sake had not yet been defined, and the tendency was to see literature not only as leisure but also as a social function.[55] This opinion was still current at the end of the century, as exemplified by the words of the reputed writer, Gonçalves de Magalhães, one of the founders of national Romanticism, who stated in 1865: "The literature of a people is the development of what it has of the most sublime in ideas, of most philosophical in thought, of most heroic in morals, and most beautiful in nature."[56] This idealism did not prevent that from the 1850s, imitating the national example, and popular literature of quick consumption began to proliferate in the province, mainly through the press.[57]

Amid a growing influx of imported texts, it was a concern of the Parthenon to encourage the local production of literature, but, advocating a project of regeneration of civilization, the educational and moralizing function of literature was always strongly emphasized. Even works by famous writers were discouraged if they could harm the ethics and good manners of the population, and moral education was among the main interests of the members. Caldre and Fião, for example, mentioned that "the pleasant should come after the useful and this after the necessary."[58] The popular taste had a considerable space among the Parthenonists, and many of the texts published in their journal were mild and accessible, aimed especially at the female public, although the works were selected by the criteria of morality and educational value.[59] Even though within the Parthenon's program there was a strong concern to establish aesthetic refinement as a central element of good literature, better delimiting its field of action and its character, to perform its task, the literate could not only know how to write well but should follow a strict code of ethics, assuming a "mission" that was often compared to the priesthood or the career of arms, and should be a polymath, mastering broad knowledge in a variety of subjects, keeping in force many of the ideals of the "man of letters" that had been formulated since the previous century.[55]

The main Parthenonists also intended to keep literature away from politics, claiming that it could spoil its purity, but in practice this did not occur, coming into direct conflict with their project of changing the directions of the history, culture, and society of Rio Grande do Sul through literature, producing works of a strong ideological and politicized nature, and establishing alliances with parties and politicians for their initiatives to be carried out.[55]

The Parthenon played a fundamental role in the aesthetic organization and diversification of the literary theme, as well as in the valorization of the literate as a professional, promoting the passage from a system of dispersive "literary manifestations" to the formation of a "literature", as a continuous and organized production of works capable of being identified as part of a movement with its own identity and a defined function. For this organizing and valuing role, and for the consistency and long duration of its project, the society was recognized by the consensus of historians as the one responsible for the foundation of a literary system[note 2] in the province, with the Revista Mensal as its main instrument.[10][60][61]

Cover of the Monthly Magazine (Revista Mensal), No. 6, August 1869.

Portrait of the Baron of Triumph in the Revista Mensal, No. 6, June 1873.

The Revista Mensal (Monthly Magazine) of the Parthenon Litterario Society was published from March 1869 to September 1879, with some interruptions. In each issue one of the members of the commission took on the role of editor-in-chief, and was responsible for organizing the volume and writing an editorial, the "Monthly Chronicle", which presented a report of the society's activities or brought relevant news from the province and beyond, being valuable historical documents. The magazine was printed at the printers of the Jornal do Comércio.[19] Athos Damasceno mentions that it likely had a free distribution, but in an 1875 issue a subscription fee appears. The charging might have become a necessity at a certain point.[62]

The magazine did not have the expected repercussion at its launch, but soon was regularly praised in the press for the benefits it had been bringing to the cultural world and the society of the province.[19] A survey conducted by Pedro Leite Villas Boas identified a total of 78 collaborators, eight of them women. However, the value of these individual contributions was not homogeneous, and on the whole, their specifically literary value was considered low by Moysés Vellinho, who stated, "Their pages, crusted with a rhetoric that for us has completely lost its sense and taste, retain a purely historical interest," noting that "in their time they played a considerable function, a function that cannot fail to be taken into account in the inventory of our literary evolution." Athos Damasceno agreed, analyzing that "really, although of little or no value for letters, these pages, however, vividly translate the aspirations of the time and attest to the warmth, the commitment with which here was then trying to respond to the appeals of the historical moment, expressively in tune with the spirit of renewal of customs, institutions, and ideas already in full bloom in other cultural areas of Brazil."[19]

The magazine contained literary criticism, commentaries, editorials, and studies on Rio Grande do Sul's history and culture. Speeches given in society were then transcribed for the magazine, in addition to short stories, narratives, plays, and poetry. The longer texts were divided into several parts and published over several issues. According to Alexandre Lazzari, "in their majority, the writers who contributed to the Parthenon magazine preferred to write short stories and poems about the feelings and customs of the urban society, with special concern for the moral education of the family girls."[59] Almost every issue featured a biography of an illustrious personage, accompanied by a portrait, which was presented as a model of virtue that the youth should imitate. Those chosen were generally educated men, military men, politicians, and professors from the recent past, who had not distinguished themselves by radical ideological or party adherences, demonstrating the society's interest in reaching the widest possible public.[63] In an editorial, Caldre e Fião emphasized the function of these texts:

"It is more useful, I say again, for us to engrave virtue, glory, heroism upon bronze or marble, or in these pages which are to be written, for the lesson of youth, for the models of generations to come, than to narrate the easy triumphs of happy minds who know how to tell us in the hours of distraction with beauty and grace, how beautiful and graceful is the nature of our pays, our sun, our moon, and the sweet waters that quench us and the forests that shade us and generate melancholy but intoxicating schisms in our soul."[64]

Literary criticism was one of the relevant areas of activity of the Revista Mensal,[14][65] aiming to form the taste of the public. This criticism was not restricted to purely literary aspects, as it also analyzed the moral quality of the productions since the ethical and civic education of the population was among the main concerns of the Parthenon. This activity as arbiters of taste and education extended to the theater, considered a moral school. Several members of the Parthenon ventured into the creation of dramaturgy, with works staged and published in the Revista Mensal. Although the Theatro São Pedro was already functioning and there was a theatrical tradition in the city, the Parthenonists were concerned about the low level of the works presented, which often had a circus character or were popular comedies.[65] In the analysis of Cássia Silveira,

"[The theater] had the advantage of presenting to the spectators, theoretically, scenes from the lives of ordinary people and, emphasizing the naturalness of the staging. It also tried to show the Porto Alegre public the most appropriate behavior, gestures, dress, and language for each situation. Thus, the theater was an art form very much in tune with the kind of exemplary pedagogy of which the Parthenon was adept [...] The texts about theater, in general, established a hierarchy between a superior taste, patriotic and in harmony with civilization, and another "perverted", that preferred the little horses and the comic sketches. The superior taste would be linked to an equally superior morality, and should appreciate a picture of clean customs."[66]

It was a publication that reflected the heterogeneous composition of society and the different degrees of preparation of its members, in which there were conservatives and liberals, monarchists and republicans, Catholics and Masons, romanticists and classicists, spiritualists and materialists, rationalists, evolutionists, scholastics and free thinkers.[19] The magazine was the main publication of literary character in Rio Grande do Sul in the 19th century[17][19][67] and one of the main vehicles of consecration for new authors.[68] Its greatest contributions to the southern literary and cultural universe were the structuring of the regional literary system,[14][10] the consolidation of literary criticism as a specific professional activity, autonomous and distinct from journalism. The publication has also been a vehicle for the dissemination of regionalist literature,[69][19][18] and remained the best source for the study of the state's intellectuality of the late nineteenth century.[70] For Guilhermino César, the magazine had the merit of constituting a regular and consistent space for the continued writing of literature that organizes itself thematically and aesthetically, and was a vehicle of central importance for the rescue of local traditions.[71] In Vinícius Estima's synthesis:

"Continuing the task initiated by its predecessors O Guayba (1856) and Arcádia (1867), the magazine not only expanded the field of action of the literary press in the south but also began to promote the decentralization and unification of literature, to the extent that its circulation reached the various localities of the province. More than promoting the dissemination of authors and works, publishing short stories, novels, poetry, and other productions of those who, over the years, would establish themselves as the great intellectual mentors of the state, the wide dissemination of the magazine stimulates the constitution of a faithful and active reading public, formed both by collaborators and members of the institution itself, and by the creators of other groups and press vehicles that are formed from its influence."[60]

According to some authors, such as Maria Eunice Moreira and Carlos Baumgarten, a divergence among members of the Parthenon would have led to the emergence of the journal Murmúrios do Guaíba, of ephemeral duration. For Mauro Póvoas, it was created to fill the vacuum left by the temporary interruption of the Revista Mensal in December 1869, both using identical structures in literary dissemination. Athos Damasceno lamented the brevity of its existence, comparing it in quality to the Revista Mensal.[72][73]

At the time of the Parthenon, education in the province was poorly organized and of low quality, even in the capital there was a context of precariousness recognized by the government. The first public classes in Porto Alegre were founded in 1820 with three teachers. By 1832, nine public elementary schools had been created, but only one was functioning. In the 1850s, a high school was founded in the capital, but it could not meet the demand and the quality necessary. Some private schools functioned, but also with poor results, and the complaints continued in the press and in the tribunes of the Provincial Assembly. To achieve a higher education, it was necessary to go to the academies in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, or abroad, accessible only to the wealthy families. In 1872, 75.94% of the Rio Grande do Sul population was illiterate, and the following year the Porto Alegre lyceum closed its doors.[91]

Program of studies and regulation of Colégio Rio-Grandense, founded in 1870 by Apolinário Porto-Alegre, Apeles Porto-Alegre and Vasco de Araújo e Silva

The Parthenon sought to expand the culture of the province by supporting or sponsoring several elementary and secondary schools in Porto Alegre,[48] and offering night courses for adults.[14] It created a library with 6 thousand volumes of important works, and a museum, one of the first in the province, with a collection of more than 4 thousand items divided into the sections of Mineralogy, Archaeology, Numismatics, Botany and Zoology.[8][92] The Parthenon had the intention of founding an academy (university), which if it had materialized would have been the first in the province.[36] It also encouraged the creation of libraries in several municipalities to expand the reading public.[93][14] The society also developed plans for women's education on a large scale, which also did not materialize.[94] Many of the Parthenon members were teachers and some founded prestigious schools, such as the Porto-Alegre brothers, Hilário Ribeiro, Vasco de Araújo, and Bibiano Francisco de Almeida.[95]

In the view of the Parthenonists, providing good role models was one of the most important functions of literature. For some, religion could also be a good teacher, but there were divergent opinions about its role and usefulness,[96] and the moral reputation of the Rio Grande do Sul's Catholic clergy of the time, in general, was low.[97][98] Despite this concern, directed mainly at youth, in the ideology propagandized by the Parthenon and supported by the political and economic elites, Rio Grande do Sul was considered to be a granary of virtue and honor, and it was up to the young to imitate the example of the elders and the heroes.[59][99][100][101]

A direct consequence of the perception of provincial literature as precarious and incipient, and of reading as dependent on outside authors, was the emphasis on autochthonous creation. Although reading the works of famous literati and philosophers from Brazil and abroad was encouraged, it was desired to make literary creation a routine practice in Rio Grande do Sul, which linked directly to the encouragement given to the education of the people as the basis on which that routine could be built.[68]

The Parthenon of Athens

The Parthenon's educational and civilizing goals were embedded in the very name of the society: The Parthenon, dedicated to the goddess Athena, is the name of the main building of the Acropolis of Athens, a city traditionally consecrated as one of the cradles of Western civilization. According to Schnorr & Rosa, "relating a literary association to a divinity recognized for its wisdom, intelligence, and prudence seems to do justice to the Parthenonists' project of fighting against the ignorance of the Rio Grande do Sul population, mostly composed of illiterate individuals.[2] They tried to equate bravery in the military arts with the achievements of intellectual struggle, in a land that had neither libraries nor good schools (and no higher education), where prowess in arms and political tribunes had always won the highest praise.[2][102] The Revista Mensal had many editorials and articles following the romantic taste of the time and the visions of its founders.[16] An example of this discourse appears in the presentation of the Parthenon Program, written by Apolinário Porto-Alegre and published in the first issue of the magazine, from which some excerpts follow:

"June 18, 1868, marked a great epoch. A monument was erected. The foundations were laid under the auspices of a horrendous storm. It seemed that earth and heaven conspired against an idea in its sublime realization. There was everything to overcome, everything to create, without the flattering smile of hope, without the shimmering of the dawn, without a word of encouragement! The Alvans of the Parthenon were apostles of a belief, as were Cephas and Paul; they both had the same moral energy. The cult of letters is also a religion, and like every religion, it is not without a coliseum of martyrdom, a crown of thorns, and an apotheosis on the pencil that covers it. June 18th opened the literary cycle in the province, which until then, had not been able to gather a nucleus where the civilizing light could focus on the true, the good, and the beautiful."[103]

The integration of women into social life was one of the concerns of the Parthenon from the very beginning. At that time, the role of women was confined to the domestic sphere. They had little space in cultural activities; it was admissible for them to become teachers, and to possess artistic talents, such as singing and piano playing, taken as a sign of virtue and good education, but it was above all seen as a social ornament, suitable only for display in semi-public soirées. There was a large number of women engaged in labor and servile work, who also had little voice, but their participation in politics and intellectual activities was always discouraged.[96][104][105] They were believed to have a passionate and sentimental nature, their sexuality was feared to escape control, and they should renounce any pretense of command.[106] Women did not vote, and even the office of teaching, though encouraged as honorable and natural to women, did not escape prejudice. As Regina Zilberman put it,

"Assigning women to the teaching profession solved several problems: it justified the need to educate women; it solved the problem of the lack of manpower for teaching, a profession little sought after because it was poorly paid; there was no need to improve wages because women's wages should not be higher than men's. These reasons were covered by others, ideological in nature: The teacher was idealized, calling her a "mother" and thus suggesting that, in teaching, she remained faithful to her maternal nature; the professional element of teaching was denied because the classroom became a second home; teaching would not be a problem, because it was not work, but an extension of domestic chores, which held back the eventual emancipatory tendency that this activity might contain and did not contradict the sexist nature of Brazilian patriarchal society; and the woman-wife-mother association remained untouched, and also idealized, even when she was outside the home, earning the modest daily bread."[107]

Luciana de Abreu, prominent member of the society, defender of the women's cause. Her portrait shows the gold cross received from the Parthenon in 1873, the highest distinction conferred by the society.[108]

The Parthenonists did not have a consensual position on the feminine question, but in general recognized that women were abandoned and that their potential in the project of nation building was poorly used, believing that their poor participation in the community was due above all to a deficient education, focused only on domestic chores. To remedy this situation, following the position of other thinkers of the time, they proposed that an improved education would "refine their spirits" and direct their attention to moral and elevated themes, and would give them more conditions to assist their husbands, better prepare their children and form patriotic citizens dedicated to public interests. However, they still conceived the woman essentially as destined to the home and needing constant male guidance.[107] An article by Apolinário Porto-Alegre in the Revista Mensal is an example of the male opinion about women in the late 19th century, when he invited them to read the magazine and enjoy the texts aimed at them:

"Yes, the magazine is for you sublime creatures, sworn enemies of the dry formulas of science and the algebra of principles. [Daughters of the poetic delight of God, passionate lovers by instinct and affinity of flowers, you want to see them bloom even in style. [...] When you want to understand the supreme architect of the world, it is certainly not in the wise dissertations of the doctors of the Church, nor in the muscular argument of philosophy, it is in the dawn that dawns, in the meadow that blooms and in the sky that glitters, it is rather in the melancholy melodies of Lamartine or Chateaubriand.[109]"

At least twelve women are recorded participating in the Parthenon's activities, among them Luísa de Azambuja, Amália dos Passos Figueroa and Revocata Heloísa de Melo,[110] but the greatest exponent was Luciana de Abreu, who was reputed and protected by Caldre and Fião. She was the first woman to be admitted into a literary society in Brazil, and the first who went up on a public tribune to express her ideas. Orphaned, adopted by a humble family, and dedicated intensely to study, she became a poet, an orator, and a public teacher, being admired. She was in line with the Parthenonists' general educational proposal but went beyond it. She advocated the perfect equality of the genders in their capacities of intelligence and sensitivity, did not accept the submissive and domestic role reserved for them, complained about the inherent injustice of differential treatment, and advocated that women should be recognized for their leadership capacity and that they had the right to pursue higher education and freely govern their own lives by choosing the professions to which they felt inclined. Her speeches made a lively impression, according to reports of the time they resonated throughout the city.[96]

However, the feminism of the Parthenonists ceased, and most of them were not willing to grant women such independence.[96] Exceptions to this position were Bernardino dos Santos, who supported the full equalization between the genders,[111] and in part Caldre e Fião, who proposed a broader educational model, having presented in 1854 to the Provincial Assembly a complete project for women's education where each woman would receive an education appropriate to her social position, and which included the creation of rural schools for poor girls where they would learn various trades, however the project was not adopted.[94]

According to Cássia Silveira, after the initial enthusiasm, the Parthenonists ended up having disagreements about how to interpret Luciana's discourse, and in the end, her ideas and projects were overshadowed and forgotten, with the patriarchal model upheld by the majority, which included Apolinário, the influential leader of the group.[96] Her example, however, marked the local culture, and today she is remembered as one of the pioneers of feminism in Rio Grande do Sul.[112][113]

Illustration of the abolitionist kermesse promoted in 1884 by the Abolitionist Center of the Parthenon Litterario and by the City Council

Blacks of Porto Alegre in 1884, after being liberated.

The Parthenon saw slavery as a crime against humanity and as a factor of delay in the civilizing process, proposing an economic-social model based on free labor and the education of former slaves.[114] The society actively participated in the abolitionist movement, often using this banner as a pretext to attack the monarchy and its institutions, considered obsolete by them.[115] In 1869, claiming to be inspired by the activities of the Parthenon, the Liberal Directory and the Count of Porto Alegre created the Liberating Society,[114] which managed to raise funds for the liberation of at least 50 enslaved children.[116] In September 1883, two members of the Parthenon, Joaquim de Salles Torres Homem and Júlio César Leal, who were members of the Abolitionist Section, founded a parallel entity, the Abolitionist Center of Porto Alegre, under the presidency of Colonel Joaquim Pedro Salgado, and took the lead in the campaign to free the slaves in the city. All political parties and the City Council supported the idea. They published articles in the press and organized the so-called "abolitionist journey", which took place between 12 and 18 August 1884, when commissions were created to go around the districts and suburbs of the capital persuading slave owners to free their slaves. The Abolitionist Center and the Chamber organized festivities between 6 and 8 September, with public ceremonies attended by the highest state and municipal authorities, civic parades, and kermesses aimed at raising funds.[117]

However, there were serious disagreements between liberals, conservatives, and republicans on how liberation should be conducted, and the controversy extended into the Parthenon, but there was a general concern that without control the freedmen would fall into vagrancy and crime.[117][118] Some members of the Parthenon, such as Alberto Coelho da Cunha and Apolinário Porto-Alegre, had a clear view on the matter, denouncing the prejudice and the cruel treatment blacks received,[59] but in that context, the dominant tendency was to create a mechanism of conditional freedom, where freedmen would be obliged to render services to their former masters for up to seven years, although they were nominally free, because, as the province president Rodrigo de Azambuja Vilanova stated, "the great majority of freedmen will prefer to accompany their former benefactors, as in Rio Grande do Sul slavery was always a family institution, with the slave participating in all the advantages of the masters, to whom they must be tied today by the bonds of gratitude, and whose intelligence and experience they cannot do without. As a result of the campaign, all the slaves in the city were freed in September 1884, four years before the signing of the Lei Áurea.[117]

It is a consensus among historians that the founding of the Parthenon constituted a watershed in the literary-cultural field of Rio Grande do Sul, and that its activity was of great importance in its time, but this importance lies mainly in the foundation of literature of regionalist character and its generic role of cultural dynamizers, since the fruits of its specifically literary production, in aesthetic and artistic terms, even if following trends of the time, have been considered poor, with few exceptions.[19][45][119][120][121] The Parthenon Literário was also at the forefront of the state abolitionist movement, carried out the relevant political and educational activity, and was a pioneer in the process of gender equalization by admitting and honoring women, albeit in a limited way.[14][43][48][49][96]

For Athos Damasceno, the society promoted "the disentanglement of the entire institutional apparatus, for the benefit of Rio Grande do Sul's progress. And there we find the first signs of this new phase of our history";[16] "and not only will it act strongly in our midst, intervening in all spheres of the state's life, as it will be the starting point, the origin of new literary societies that, during the last thirty years of the century will be built, transmitting to each other the responsibilities of processing our culture, its meaning and its objectives".[43] For Luciana Boeira it was "the most successful case of cultural association in Rio Grande do Sul in the 19th century";[122] according to Camila Vellinho, "no similar society had, until then, in any cultural center of the country, the importance or the duration of the Parthenon. Before the Academia Brasileira de Letras ("Brazilian Letter Society"), founded much later, the Literary Partenon was, without a doubt, the association that showed more vitality in the general framework of Brazilian literature";[45] for Flávio Loureiro Chaves its appearance was "a decisive landmark in the history of literature in Rio Grande do Sul",[123] the same opinion by Regina Zilberman: "The effective beginning of the literature in Rio Grande do Sul coincides with the performance of those writers who took part in this association. [...] It is with the members of the Literary Partenon that the effort in favor of the strengthening of local literature, through the concretization of a circuit of production and consumption of works, is more successful."[120] In Maria Eunice Moreira's synthesis,

"The proposition of effective mechanisms to achieve its goals, the discovery and dissemination of authors and works, the formation of a reading public not only in the capital, but also in the interior, associated with its long duration, gave the society a mythical role in the history of the Rio Grande do Sul literature. United by the republican ideals and agglutinated by common political principles, namely the republic and the abolition of slavery, the generation of the Literary Partenon, as this group of intellectuals became known, provoked a true revolution in a Province generally more shaken by war than by letters. The Literary Parthenon assumes a special function, for its members are men engaged with the political ideals of the ruling class of Rio Grande do Sul and, at the same time, it is still this group that produces and divulges the literary material capable of representing and conforming the yearnings of the community in which it is inserted. By organizing literary life in the extreme of Brazil, the Parthenonists collaborated to sustain the republican elite in power: artists in creation, politicians in ideology, but, above all, builders of the Rio Grande do Sul society, the Literary Partenon combined literary and political purposes, resulting in its importance for the understanding of a historical period and for the study of the birth of literature in the state. To read the narratives written by these early writers is, therefore, to read the initial pages of the formation of the state and the genesis of its literary process."[49]