Note 13 — Chapter IV · THE ROMANTIC TRANSFORMATION (1830-1870)

With respect to a related subject Verissimo has uttered words quite as wise, in harmony with the esthetic view of nationalism.

“In no other Brazilian poets do I find, together with a banal facility in versification, the eminent qualities of poetry.… Another salient quality of these poets (that is, of those whom Verissimo groups into the second Romantic generation, including Gonçalves Dias, Alvares de Azevedo, Casimiro de Abreu, Junqueiro Freire, Laurindo Rabello) is their nationalism. Not that factitious nationalism of duty or erudition, in which intention and process are clearly discernible, but the expression—unconscious, so to say—of the national soul itself, in its feeling, its manner of speech, its still rudimentary thought. They are not national because they speak of bores, tacapes or inubias, or sing the savages that rove these lands. With the exception of Gonçalves Dias, none of them is even ‘Indianist.’ Casimiro de Abreu, upon whom Gonçalves Dias made so great an impression, whose nostalgia derives largely from the Cançõ do Exilio (Song of Exile) no longer sings the Indian. Neither do Alvares de Azevedo, Laurindo or the others.” Estudos, II, Pages 19-20.