History According to Maria Beatriz Papaléo, Damasceno approached History in a peculiar perspective, rejecting to paint the past with mythologies and focusing on popular and humorous aspects, creating an original portrait of the city that recovered information little valued by other historians, being, in her words, a "meticulous craftsman of the daily life" who left a "popular inventory of the city". But this does not diminish the interest in his research, whose seriousness and competence are widely recognized. According to Joana Figueiredo, "as an intellectual ahead of his time, the author already knew that not all history is made of myth and grandeur, but of stitches and lines, knots and buttons – with a few beads and turbans to give it color and joy.") and
Sacadas e Sacadinhas Porto-Alegrenses (1945), he interweaves his view of historian with his poetic side and his experience as a citizen, describing the changes in the urban scenario by the passage of time and the concomitant changes in the social meanings of the spaces and the lives of their occupants, focusing on the study of the "identity of the citizens of Porto Alegre, weakened by the advent of transformations in urban space in vogue from the 1940s," as Charles Monteiro stated, and at the same time denouncing, dismaying, the accelerated "erasing of the marks of the city of yesteryear," such as the old buildings, since he understood them as necessary elements for the preservation of a sense of identity for the locals. In his writing, as Gabriela Silva observed, Damasceno makes recurrent use of the first person and of interpellations to the reader, interweaving personal and collective memories and experiences to the critical analysis of history, a strategy "to refer the reader to a continuity between past and present, which leads to the strengthening of the identity that one wants to conform". This did not hinder his lucidity regarding aspects of the past that had changed, citing for example the poor sanitation conditions and precarious public transport of nineteenth-century Porto Alegre, distinguishing them from the aspects he deemed essential for the preservation of the essence of local identity. Joana Figueiredo believes that "by historicizing the region and his city, in a sentimental and engaged way, Athos Damasceno inserts himself as an author committed to the past, its present and a future of the letters and arts of Rio Grande do Sul. His writing is at the same time memory and history, testimony and document". For Figueiredo, his role in the historiography of Rio Grande do Sul art compares to that of
Vasari for the Italian arts of the
Renaissance. He was an articulator of concepts related to regionalism. An excerpt from one of the articles, that fueled the
polemic with Vargas Netto, is illustrative of his position:
Literature Early on, his poetic work was influenced by the
Symbolism of poets such as
Mallarmé,
Rodenbach, and
Verlaine and musicians such as
Debussy, leaving two remarkable collections of pieces in this style. The first,
Poemas do Sonho e da Desesperança (1925), is dedicated to his wife, Clara, and centers on the theme of mystical and spiritual love, tinged with melancholy, a sense of longing, and a desire to escape from reality, which was offset by hope and pity. The second,
Poemas de Minha Cidade (1936), is one of the culminating points of Symbolism in Gaúcho (Rio Grande do Sul) lands, creating the same misty, crepuscular, and subjective atmospheres as the other work, but also adding touches of irony and humor, and revealing, as Cristiano Fretta states, "an artist aware of the universality of literature but extremely attached to the (provincial) environment in which he found himself", "which means that the artists of the time were clearly aware of what the city was then". In the meantime, he had experimented with
Modernism in the collection
Lua de Vidro (1930), which likewise remains one of the main Rio Grande do Sul contributions to this school. Nevertheless, for Cristiano Fretta his production is representative of the interests of the group, especially by the approach he takes to Porto Alegre and the adoption in his literary work of aesthetic principles common to all. He was like the others, as Regina Zilberman believes, engaged in the process of renewal of local literature through the incorporation of novelties introduced by the modern avant-garde, but preserving ties with the past and previous literature. An excerpt from the poem
Praça da Harmonia, about the old square which was a meeting place for local poets and was dismantled to make room for the
Mauá Pier, serves as an illustration of the first stage: In the field of prose literature, the novels
Moleque: novelinha de arrabalde (1938) and
Menininha (1941) are highlights, as well as the short story book
Persianas Verdes: contos e manchas (1967), which set prosaic characters in the humble settings of the streets and houses of the periphery, in the bars and popular parties, leading often miserable, sad and meaningless lives, lost in unsatisfied dreams of freedom and justice and excluded from the bright hustle and bustle and big events of urban centers, a theme that knew great vogue at the time. The author acknowledged his special debt to
Eça de Queiroz: "None of us has escaped the influence of Eça de Queiroz. There is no use in wrinkling our noses, pretending to hide what is so clear. A writer much more Brazilian than Portuguese, he was to us a kind of older brother, to be admired and imitated. In our literature there was much of his monocle."
Erico Veríssimo held his artistic work in high regard, praising his "sharp, right-handed prose, [that] knows how to tell a story and make a poem. A skillful verbal juggler, he can give novel interest to the most insipid and heavy subjects." He was also a renowned literary critic. == Legacy ==