Biography of Joao Capistrano De Abreu: – Historian, geographer, literary critic and Brazilian linguist. His family sent him to Pernambuco for the purpose of conducting preliminary studies to gain access to the Faculty of Law.
He returned to Ceara, where he began as a teacher his professional career in the field of education, although he also devoted himself to literary criticism.
Biography of Joao Capistrano De Abreu
- Born:- 23 October 1853, Maranguape, Ceará, Brazil
- Died:- 13 August 1927, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Books:- Chapters of Brazil Colonial History, 1500-1800
In 1875 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he worked as a teacher of private schools, an official of the National Library (1879) and professor of History of Brazil of the Pedro II College (1883), a position obtained by opposition, when he presented his doctoral thesis O Discovery of Brazil.
See Also: Biography of Duke of the Abruzzo
In several newspapers in Rio de Janeiro he published articles on literary criticism, his other great passion, since the 1870s. He was elected professor for the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute in 1887, when he was already a prestigious researcher in the history of Brazil.
The production of Capistrano de Abreu is deeply marked by two currents of influence, which divide his work into two clearly differentiated parts. During the first stage he entered scientism, in which his production received the powerful influence of the positivism of Auguste Comte, of the evolutionism of Herbert Spencer, of the determinism of Henry Thomas Buckle and the biologist of Claude Bernard.
To this stage belong the studies carried out from his youth until the middle of the 1880s, collected in Brazilian literature (1874), where he presents his thesis on the discovery of Brazil and the formation of Brazilian society in the sixteenth century.
The second stage is the one that can truly be considered scientific; in it he carried out his research and interpretation work without being influenced by the rigid previous schemes, based on his own experience and the greater mastery of the documents.
This phase belong titles such as Chapters of colonial history, Essays and studies and the books Caminhos antiguo e povoamento do Brasil (Ancient roads and settlement of Brazil), Chapters of colonial history and Descobrimento do Brasil, which include the articles and prefaces he wrote during His research career. His interesting correspondence was compiled and published in 1954 in three volumes.
