Antônio Gonçalves Dias was born in
Caxias on August 10, 1823, to a
Portuguese father, João Manuel Gonçalves Dias and a
cafuza mother, Vicência Ferreira. After completing his studies in
Latin,
French and
Philosophy, he went in 1838 to
Portugal to earn a degree in
Law at the
University of Coimbra. There he wrote his most remembered poem, "
Canção do exílio". He graduated in 1845 and returned to Brazil in the same year. He went to
Rio de Janeiro, living there until 1854. There he wrote for newspapers, and began to write the
drama Leonor de Mendonça in 1846 and his first poetry book,
Primeiros Cantos, in 1847. It was very well-received, and
Alexandre Herculano wrote an article praising it. Dias finished his play
Leonor de Mendonça also in 1847, and tried to have it performed at the
Conservatório de Música do Rio de Janeiro, but the play was not accepted. In 1848, he wrote two more poetry books:
Segundos Cantos and
Sextilhas de Frei Antão. In 1849 he became professor of
Latin and
History at the
Colégio Pedro II. In 1851, he published his last poetry book,
Últimos Cantos. In the same year, he travelled to
Northern Brazil, planning to marry 14-year-old Ana Amélia Ferreira do Vale, to whom he dedicated many of his most famous and beautiful love poems, such as "Seus olhos", "Leviana", "Palinódia" and "Retratação". Ana Amélia was the cousin of Alexandre Teófilo de Carvalho Leal, who in his turn was the brother of
Antônio Henriques Leal, a famous Brazilian journalist, writer, medician, biographer and historian known as the "
Plutarch of
Cantanhede". (Both Alexandre and Antônio were very close friends with Dias, and Antônio would edit Dias' posthumous works in 1875, in 6 volumes.) However, the girl's mother did not allow the marriage, quoting Dias'
mestizo origins as a pretext. (This inspired his famous poem "Ainda uma vez – adeus!".) Returning to Rio, he married Olímpia Carolina da Costa later on, having with her a
stillborn daughter. Dias divorced Olímpia in 1856. From 1854 to 1858, he went to Europe on special missions for the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, where he studied the state of public instruction in the educational institutions there. near the shores of Guimarães,
Maranhão. All the passengers but Dias survived the tragedy; he was sleeping in his cabin belowdecks and did not wake up in time to see what was happening; thus he drowned. Dias had a nephew who was also a poet,
Teófilo Dias. ==Works==