Camões tropical: o poeta e o símbolo na construção da brasilidade entre Império e República
Abstract
This article examines how the symbolic figure of Luís de Camões was appropriated in the construction of Brazilian national identity from the Second Empire through the First Republic. The poet emerges as a civilizational hero, a cultural mediator, and an imperial emblem reconfigured by educational discourse, press narratives, and intellectual interventions. Drawing from cultural history, memory studies, and postcolonial critique, the paper explores how Camões was used to legitimize a Luso-affiliated Brazilian identity, later challenged by modernist and republican discourses. Using literary, iconographic, and educational sources, it argues that Camões became both a symbol of symbolic continuity with Portugal and a contested field of ideological and aesthetic renegotiation.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Sociology and Education in Brazil
Literature
Culture
and Criticism
History of Colonial Brazil
Publication details
- Journal / source
- História Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 76–95
- Publication date
- 9 January 2026
- Language
- PT