The gonzaguian epic and the wreck of the stone raft: history and rhetoric in the epic of Tomás Antônio Gonzaga

Abstract

On September 2, 1802, the Marialva, a Portuguese career ship, was shipwrecked in Mozambique, with a total of 136 deaths. The tragedy was the theme of Tomás Antônio Gonzaga (1744-1810), who was depleted in Africa for his involvement with the Inconfidência Mineira, in an epic of which few fragments are restored, transcribed by Ronald Polito de Oliveira and published by Edusp in 1995. There are possible relationships between the poem and its context, but without falling into the temptation to make this epic a “portrait” of the time. That is, the historical facts represented in this work have an autonomy arising from the treatment of the rhetorical conventions of the time that characterize the composition of this epic. This text tries to demonstrate.