Order and Power in Luso-American Poetry in 1821

Abstract

This article analyzes two poetic pamphlets published in Rio de Janeiro in the year 1821: the anonymous Poesias em applauso dos heroicos feitos do memoravel dia 26 de Fevereiro and Versos que na occazião de celebrar o Corpo do Commercio da Ilha de Santa Catharina o haver-se alli jurado a Constituição, recitou seu author Diogo Duarte e Silva. Departing from the understanding that these printed materials mobilize political notions of order and power related to the post-Liberal Revolution of Porto events in August 1820, it is concluded that a) the first pamphlet creates, in its compositions and through historical interpretation, a hypothesis that there was, on February 26, 1821, an attempt at a coup against the monarchy; and b) the second pamphlet, especially in the ode “Ao horrorozo assassinato do Juiz Ordinario da Villa de Laguna Luiz Martins Collaço,” articulates an understanding of the existence of an unofficial and violent power. This inference notes that Luso-American poetry in the early 1820s attempted to organize new means of reflection and production in the face of the socio-political apparatuses in which it found itself involved.