Romantismo, José de Alencar e a língua portuguesa

Abstract

This article aims at showing how Romanticism, with its Anglo-Saxon origins, assumed a set of ideas that advocated the right for a national lifestyle, for the development of a national language, and to a poetry as a national idealization. Language was influenced by these as an “aversion to what was static and complete”. In Brazil, José de Alencar was the writer who best represented the romantic language. Although Alencar had stood up for anti-classical linguistic impositions, mainly in his post-scripts, he was not a strict follower of the movement in his work. Nevertheless, it ought not be denied that his language reveals the typical beauty and expressiveness of the “romantic substance” within the national context.