Manuel Ignacio de Alvarenga

Manuel Inácio da Silva Alvarenga (1749–1814) was a Brazilian poet. He had a life-long commitment to life-long learning and promoting civic values and educational reforms.

Biography

Early life Silva Alvarenga was born out of wedlock in Ouro Preto and was biracial. His mother was African and his father an "indigent white musician." Silva Alvarenga was able to attend the University of Coimbra in Portugal in 1776

Career He became a founding member of the Sociedade Literária do Rio de Janeiro (Literary Society in Rio de Janeiro) in 1786. The society discussed issues ranging from the French Revolution to religion, where some members challenged religious dogma and claimed that miracles did not exist. His work is compared to Tomás António Gonzaga and Cláudio Manuel da Costa.

O Desetor das Letras is a satire based on university reforms of 1772.

His series of work, Glaura: poemas eroticos was originally published in Lisbon. Many of the poems are very much part of the pastoral Arcady tradition, however, literary critics have identified "elements which foreshadow Brazilian Romanticism." O Desertor das Letras (1774) - heroic-comic poem Glaura (1799) – erotic poems