Tobias Barreto facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tobias Barreto
Born	Tobias Barreto de Meneses (1839-06-07)7 June 1839 Vila de Campos do Rio Real, Sergipe, Brazil
Died	26 June 1889(1889-06-26) (aged 50) Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
Occupation	Poet, philosopher, critic, jurist
Nationality	Brazilian
Alma mater	Faculdade de Direito do Recife
Subject	Social engagement
Literary movement	Romanticism

Tobias Barreto de Meneses (born June 7, 1839 – died June 26, 1889) was an important Brazilian writer. He was a poet, a thinker (philosopher), a lawyer (jurist), and a literary critic. He is famous for starting a new style of poetry called "Condorism". He also brought big changes to Brazilian Romanticism and poetry. He is honored as the patron of the 38th chair in the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Life Story

Tobias Barreto was born in a town called Vila de Campos do Rio Real. This town is in the southern part of Sergipe, Brazil. Later, in 1909, the town was renamed "Tobias Barreto" to honor him.

He learned his first letters from Manuel Joaquim de Oliveira Campos. He also studied Latin with a priest named Domingos Quirino. Tobias was so good at Latin that he later became a Latin professor in Itabaiana.

In 1861, he went to Bahia to study at a seminary (a school for training priests). However, he soon realized that this was not what he wanted to do, so he left. Between 1864 and 1865, he worked as a private tutor, teaching many different subjects. He also tried to become a Latin teacher, and later a Philosophy teacher, at the Ginásio Pernambucano, but he was not successful there.

Barreto was very interested in German culture. He learned about it by reading books by Ernst Haeckel and Ludwig Büchner. Because of Haeckel's ideas, Barreto became an early supporter of Darwinism (the theory of evolution) in Brazil. To share his ideas, he even started a German language newspaper called Der Deutsche Kämpfer. This means The German Fighter in German. The newspaper did not last long and did not have much influence.

Later, he moved to Escada. There, he married the daughter of a colonel (a military officer). He lived in Escada for ten years before moving back to Recife. He died in Recife in 1889 at a friend's house.

His Works

Here are some of the books and writings by Tobias Barreto:

• Brasilien, wie es ist (This means Brazil as it is in German — published in 1876)
• Ensaio de Pré-História da Literatura Alemã (1879)
• Filosofia e Crítica (1879)
• Estudos Alemães (1879)
• Dias e Noites (1881)
• Menores e Loucos (1884)
• Discursos (1887)
• Polêmicas (1901; This book was published after he died)

See also

In Spanish: Tobias Barreto para niños