Salvador de Mendonca: a polygraph between Brazilian and foreign letters

Abstract

The periodicals of the nineteenth century preserve the names of many literary figures of note in Brazilian literature, yet the memory of whom has faded. Salvador de Mendonca took a path that, like those of writers of today's canon, granted him recognition in his time and led to the writing of biographies about him in the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, his name did not make it into Brazilian literary histories. The objective of this article is to reveal Salvador de Mendonca's presence and his views on foreign literature in Brazil at a moment when the literati of the country were engaged in establishing Brazilian literature. By means of his activity in the press, his collaboration with one of the foremost bookseller-publishers of the court and the publication of a novel, we will aim at verifying his attitudes and through them interpret the conditions for literature in Brazil given the emerging national literature with the intense circulation of foreign novels and attempt to understand the implications of this factor in the forging of a literary career in nineteenth-century Brazil.