Durão, José de Santa Rita (c. 1722–1784)

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Durão, José de Santa Rita (c. 1722–1784)

José de Santa Rita Durão (b. c. 1722; d. 24 January 1784), Brazilian poet. Durão was born in Minas Gerais, Brazil, but left, never to return, at age nine. He grew up and was educated in Portugal, entering the Augustinian Order in 1738 and earning a doctorate in theology from the University of Coimbra in 1758. After serving as a papal librarian in Rome, he returned to Portugal and served as a professor of theology at Coimbra before becoming prior of the Gration convent.

In 1781 Durão published his major work, Caramuru. Modeling himself on Luís de Camões's Os Lusíadas with its celebration of Portuguese accomplishments in the Orient, Durão produced an epic poem in ten ottava rima cantos celebrating similar accomplishments in Brazil. As Camões had elaborated his narrative around Vasco da Gama's voyage to India, Durão used the discovery of Bahia by Diogo Álvares Correia (1510) and Correia's subsequent adventures. Caramurú, or Dragon of the Sea, is Correia's Indian name.

Again like Camões, and contrary to the rationalism of the age, Durão endorsed the ideal of a Christian empire served by Portuguese conquests, but he accepted eighteenth-century natural law and viewed the savage as innately noble. His accurate descriptions of Brazilian nature, moreover, together with those of native life and customs, make him an important precursor of both literary nationalism and Indianism.

See alsoGama, Vasco da .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David M. Driver, The Indian in Brazilian Literature (1942), pp. 34-40.

Antônio Cândido, Formação da literatura brasileira: Momentos decisivos, 2d ed., vol. 1 (1964), pp. 183-193.

Claude L. Hulet, "The Noble Savage in Caramurú," in Homage to Irving A. Leonard, edited by Raquel Chang-Rodrí-guez and Donald A. Yates (1977), pp. 123-130.