Teófilo Dias and Parnasianism

Textual Statistical Study

Abstract

This article presents the results of a quantiqualitative research conducted on Fanfarras (1882) by Teófilo Dias, a poet from Maranhão. Despite the limited discussions occurring nowadays, Dias had a significant impact on the political, cultural, social, and literary Brazilian context, particularly during the 1870s and 1880s of the 19th century. To achieve this, a computational tool called Aoidos (https://aoidos.ufsc.br/) was utilized, aiding in the comparative analysis of versification forms between Teófilo Dias and other poets, namely Alberto de Oliveira, Raimundo Correia, and Olavo Bilac. These poets were included in the corpus to provide a contrasting perspective on the quantitative results derived from the analysis of Fanfarras using the mentioned tool. Among the various possible analyses conducted using AOIDOS, an automatic examination of heroic and sapphic decasyllables was performed, alongside classic Alexandrine verses, the fixed form of the sonnet, and the identification of signalepha and syneresis metaplasms. These formal elements of versification are often associated with Parnassian poetry. The outcomes of the quantiqualitative analyses carried out in the research conspicuously demonstrate that Teófilo was a multifaceted poet who skillfully engaged with his contemporaneous time and space. His work encompasses an accumulation of diverse poetic styles, encompassing not only what is conventionally referred to as Romanticism, but also realism and Parnassianism.