Basílio da Gama

José Basílio da Gama (April 10, 1740 – July 31, 1795) was a Portuguese poet and member of the Society of Jesus, born in the colony of Brazil, famous for the epic poem O Uraguai. He wrote under pen name Termindo Sipílio.

Basílio da Gama
A drawing of Basílio da Gama
Born	José Basílio da Gama 10 April 1740 Tiradentes, Minas Gerais, Colony of Brazil
Died	31 July 1795 (aged 55) Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal
Pen name	Termindo Sipílio
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	Portuguese Empire
Literary movement	Neoclassicism
Notable works	O Uraguai

He is patron of the 4th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Biography

José Basílio da Gama was born in 1740, in the city of São José do Rio das Mortes (whose name was later changed to Tiradentes), in Minas Gerais, to Manuel da Costa Villas-Boas and Quitéria Inácia da Gama. The death of his father, when he was a young child, caused a hard situation in his life. During this period, a brigadier named Alpoim who served as his protector sent him to Rio de Janeiro, where he studied at Jesuit College, starting his novitiate for the Society of Jesus. With the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, Basílio went to Europe, where he travelled through many countries, such as Italy and Portugal, between 1760 and 1767. In Italy, he ingressed at the Roman Arcadia, where he adopted the pen name Termindo Sipílio.

During the first months of 1767, he went to Rio de Janeiro, to the inauguration of the ship "Serpente" (mentioned in the third canto of his epic poem O Uraguai). In 1768, he returned to Portugal, in hopes of entering at the University of Coimbra, but was arrested and exiled in Portuguese Angola, due to suspicion of being a Jesuit sympathizer. However, he received the forgiving of the Marquis of Pombal because of an epithalamium he wrote for his daughter.

The front cover of Gama's O Uraguai

During his last years, Basílio lived happily, becoming a member of the Sciences Academy of Lisbon. He died July 31, 1795, in Portugal.

Works

• Epitalâmio às Núpcias da Sra. D. Maria Amália (1769)
• O Uraguai (1769)
• A Declamação Trágica (written in 1772, but published posthumously, in 1820)
• Os Campos Elísios (1766)
• Quitúbia (1791)

External links

• Basílio da Gama's biography at the official site of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (in Portuguese)
• Works by or about Basílio da Gama at Internet Archive
• Works by Basílio da Gama at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)