Versar a liberdade, desconstruir a monarquia: representações políticas nos poemas da campanha republicana naimprensa da corte (1870-1889)

Abstract

This thesis studies the publication and the distribution of poems in newspapers and periodicals in the Brazilian Court between 1870 and 1889 as part of the republican campaign in the country. It aims to analyze how these poems contributed to the deconstruction of the monarchyslegitimacy. The poems published in the newspapers enunciated the virtues of the republican government as a model, while denouncing the vices and imperfections of the monarchy and the monarch. Thevery existence of these poems reveals a strategy for propagating the republican ideals and for enlarging its number of supporters. Likewise, it indicates a preoccupation in reaching and engaging a part of the population, which did not mobilize itself with theoretical analysis of politics. The distribution of political criticism in poem form was a common practice during the Empire. In addition to the complaints regarding political and social conditions under the Crown, there were those that called the monarchy itself into question, advocating its replacement by therepublican form of government. The poems contributed to the corrosion of the monarchys legitimacy and therefore to the absence of demonstrations in its support when the republic was proclaimed