A Moderate Reading of the Revista da Sociedade Philomatica

Abstract

This work intends to point out a new manner of interpreting the aesthetic proposals of the Revista da Sociedade Philomathica (1833), a periodical publication organized by the Philomatic Society of the Law Academy of São Paulo, not from a proto-romantic and ultranationalist perspective, as 20th century literary historiography wanted, but from a deliberately moderating point of view. It is intended to show that the Philomathica, towards all its subjects (literature, philosophy, politics), tended to assume an eclectic posture, averse to extreme opinions and perfectly aligned with the political-cultural project of other contemporary periodicals such as Aurora Fluminense and O Homem e a América, magazines linked to the Sociedade Defensora da Liberdade e Independência Nacional, an association that assembled several important personalities of political life at the court, and from which would flow the literary influx that gave rise to our moderate romanticism.