Entre a torre de marfim e o pelourinho

Abstract

The article analyzes – through prose poems by Cruz e Sousa – the contradictions between the symbolist ideals and the reality of a slaveholding country. The ivory tower space refers to the singularities of the elected poet,while the theories of racial inferiority condemn him to barbarity and social exclusion. Structure, images and voices capture these conflicts through which one can glimpse the black writer situation in nineteenth-century Brazil.