Brazilian Baroque Literature: Matos Guerra & Vieira's Legacy

Brazilian Baroque: Key Figures & Literary Context

Gregorio de Matos Guerra: The Mouth of Hell

Gregorio de Matos Guerra was born in Salvador in 1663. He studied at Coimbra and held a senior magistracy in Portugal until 1681, when he returned permanently to Brazil, likely fleeing enemies provoked by his satirical poems. In Bahia, he again suffered persecution due to his satires. Thus, he earned the nickname Boca do Inferno, or "Mouth of Hell."

The Baroque Period in Brazil

The Baroque movement, emerging as a counter-reform movement of the Catholic Church against Protestantism, profoundly influenced Baroque thought, contributing to the period's inherent duality.

Defining Characteristics of Baroque Thought

• The Baroque sought to reconcile human and divine, the sacred and the profane, the medieval and Renaissance, leading to deep anguish in the thought of the time.
• Spanish domination of Portugal (1580-1640) significantly propelled Baroque influence over Portugal and Brazil, as Spain was the first country to extensively cultivate Baroque aesthetics.

Baroque Literary Styles

The primary characteristic of the Baroque is contradiction, expressing the duality of a person torn between faith and pleasure, the heavenly and the earthly.

• Baroque literature is often elaborate and complex, characterized by the extensive use of antitheses, figures of speech, syntactic inversions, and exaggeration, sometimes making it obscure.
• Two dominant trends define the Baroque: Cultism (Culteranismo), which emphasizes the cult of perfect form and wordplay, and Conceptism (Conceptismo), which focuses on the play of ideas and arguments.

Father António Vieira: Orator, Theologian & Statesman

Father António Vieira was born in Lisbon in 1608. He came to Brazil and settled in Salvador, beginning his novitiate in the Society of Jesus. He effectively defended the New Christians, striving to protect them from the Inquisition in Portugal.

His work reflects his extensive involvement in the social and political debates of Portugal and Brazil in the seventeenth century. His letters and sermons, beyond specifically religious themes, also addressed controversial issues of the time, such as:

• The struggle for Portuguese independence
• The confrontation with the Dutch in Northeast Brazil
• Black slavery
• The protection of Jews and New Christians against the Inquisition's intolerance

Major Works of Father António Vieira

• Sermon of the Sixty
• St. Anthony's Sermon to the Fish