Amend, Replace and Cut Off

Translation of a Letter by Antônio Gonçalves Dias to Dom Pedro II

Abstract

The prominent Brazilian romantic author Antônio Gonçalves Dias (1823-1864) visited Europe from 1854 to 1858, on an official academic mission on behalf of the Brazilian government and emperor Pedro II, to whom this letter is addressed. The emperor was responsible for gathering a group of intellectuals in the Brazilian Historical Geographic Institute. Gonçalves Dias went to Germany in 1856 and met editor and bookseller Brockhaus in Leipzig in 1857, who edited three books of his: Cantos, Os Timbiras and the Tupi-Portuguese dictionary, which is mentioned in this letter. The importance of this document lies not only in the fact that it is a correspondence between two highly important Brazilian personalities of the 19^thcentury, but also in its importance in the history of academic practice in Brazil and its relation to Continental Europe. It is important to note that Gonçalves Dias was not only an author of poems and plays, but also a lawyer, linguist and ethnographer. The content of this letter might also be of great interest to tupinologists, as this discipline was held in high regard in Brazil at the time, largely due to the Brazilian romantics. The original text of the letter used in this translation was taken from the records of the Moreira Salles Institute, which in turn took it from the Annals of the National Library in Rio de Janeiro.