A brief overview of the Jornal dos Debates’ theatrical ideas

Abstract

This article intends to present a brief overview of the proposals coined by the Jornal dos Debates (1837-1838) — a periodical that carry on with the cultural and political project of the Nitheroy (1836) magazine — for the reform of Brazilian theater. In the first part, I examine the Jornal dos Debates’ general plan (its political perspective, its notion of civilizational progress, etc.), as literature comes out of it as an aesthetic and moralizing arm. In the second part, I synthesize the group’s theatrical ideas as presented by João Manuel Pereira da Silva, paying special attention to its aesthetic-ideological aspects and its proposals for the improvement of mise-en-scène and representation techniques. I come to the conclusion that the study of these proposals should interest the researcher of 19th century literature insofar as: i) it sheds new light on the literary ideas of our first romantics, revealing that their incorporation into the Brazilian environment did not happen naively; ii) reveals the existence of a dramatic and literary project, at the beginning of the 19th century, aligned with the eclectic-romantic and constitutional monarchist doctrine upheld by the Nitheroy magazine group; iii) indicates the emergence, in the mid-1830s, of journalistic criticism supported by aesthetic and philosophical criteria; iv) manifests the outstanding role that our first romantics attributed to dramaturgy.