The contribution of Fortaleza's literary press to the history of Ceará literature

Abstract

Although various factors had contributed to the economic and political decline of the State of Ceara, in the second half of the 19th century, artistic activity, mainly literary, was intense and plentiful in Fortaleza. A number of intellectuals formed separate associations, places for social interchange where they discussed many diverse issues especially literary ones. Leonardo Mota (1938), a writer from Ceara, surveying the academies and literary groups that emerged between 1870 and 1939, who were also responsible for the spread of literature in Ceara, concluded that, from 1870 to 1900, there were thirty seven groups acting within the intellectual context of Ceara, most of them from the city of Fortaleza. According to several scholars like Dolor Barreira (1948), the literary magazines and journals distributed by those associations, were of extreme importance to the history of literature in Ceara.