Tobias Barreto


Tobias Barreto de Meneses was a Brazilian poet, philosopher, jurist and literary critic. He is famous for creating the "Condorism" and revolutionizing Brazilian Romanticism and poetry. He is patron of the 38th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Life

Barreto was born in Vila de Campos do Rio Real, a town in the southern part of Sergipe. He learnt his first letters with Manuel Joaquim de Oliveira Campos, and he also studied Latin with priest Domingos Quirino. Barreto was so dedicated to the course that, in the future, he would become a Latin professor in Itabaiana.
In 1861 he left for Bahia in order to attend a seminary; however, having soon realized that it was not his vocation, he quit. Between 1864 and 1865 he became a private tutor in many subjects. He also tried to become a Latin teacher at the Ginásio Pernambucano, but was not successful at the institution.
Barreto was an enthusiast of the German culture, such an interest being induced by the reading of Ernst Haeckel and Ludwig Büchner. Following Haeckel, he was a noted early Darwinian in Brazil. For this reason he established a German language-newspaper, Der Deutsche Kämpfer. It was short-lived and had little influence.
Moving away to Escada, he married a colonel's daughter. He spent ten years there before returning to Recife. He died there in 1889 at a friend's house.

Works