Nitheroy, Revista Brasiliense (1836): A Political Bridge Between Rio de Janeiro, Paris, and Hispanic America

Abstract

Nitheroy: Revista Brasiliense de sciencias, lettras, e artes (Paris, 1836), is usually taken as the starting point of Brazil’s Romantic movement. The magazine, however, was primarily concerned not with literature but with the "modernization" of a recently independent Brazil. This essay focuses on the magazine in order to understand the role of literature in early nineteenth-century Brazilian politics. Approaching Brazilian Romanticism as inherently political serves to link nineteenth-century Brazilian literature to other Latin American literary movements of the period, and a re-examination of Nitheroy helps to bridge the gap that has historically separated Brazilian and other Latin American Romantic movements.