Virgílio Várzea and Southern Naturalism

Abstract

The paper studies the trajectory of the writer Virgílio Várzea (1863-1941) and his relationship with the naturalist aesthetics. It proposes that Várzea and his work represent a “Southern naturalism”, a naturalist strand with more description than narration, linked to the Goncourt brothers and to a conception of naturalist fiction as “painting of pictures”. In Santa Catarina, Várzea led an anti-romantic crusade supported by a broad spectrum of modern and scientific ideas that he called “naturalism”. There he published with Cruz e Souza the short story volume Tropos e fantasias (1885), marked by naturalist and evolutionist themes and ideas. When he migrated to Rio de Janeiro in 1890, he brought “Southern naturalism” to the cultural capital of the country, in the context of the post-imperial euphoria and the Old/New x North/South polemic, which he co-starred in with Oscar Rosas (1864-1921) and other Southern writers. The “Southern naturalism” was an alternative to the canonical “Northern naturalism” represented by Aluísio Azevedo (1857-1913) and Adolfo Caminha (1867-1897). Virgílio Várzea’s trajectory reveals that there were other conceptions of naturalism in circulation and competition in 19th century Brazil.