Francisco Otaviano


Francisco Otaviano de Almeida Rosa was a Brazilian poet, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. He is famous for translating into Portuguese works by famous writers such as Horace, Catullus, Lord Byron, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Victor Hugo and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, mostly of them for the first time.
He is the patron of the 13th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Life

Otaviano was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1825, to Otaviano Maria da Rosa, a doctor, and Joana Maria da Rosa. He entered the Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de São Paulo in 1841, graduating in 1845. Returning to Rio, he started to collaborate for newspapers such as Sentinela da Monarquia, the Official Gazette of the Empire of Brazil, Jornal do Commercio and Correio Mercantil.
From 1867 to 1869 he was the deputy of the Empire of Brazil, and served as the negotiator of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance among Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
He died in 1889.

Works

His most famous poem is "Ilusões da vida".