Taunay, Alfredo d'Escragnolle, Vicomte de (1843–1899)

Alfredo d'Escragnolle, Vicomte de Taunay (b. 22 February 1843; d. 25 January 1899), Brazilian author and politician. Taunay, born in Rio de Janeiro, was the son of Félix Émile de Taunay, a French painter who came to Brazil in 1816 as a member of the French Artistic Mission, with Jean-Baptiste Debret. Taunay enlisted in the army in 1861, graduated from the Military Academy in 1864, and served in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870), in particular at the heroic retreat from Laguna. Soon afterward he wrote an account of the latter, La retraite de la Lagune (1871), which was translated into Portuguese a year later by his son, Affonso d'Escragnolle Taunay. He published some seven novels, often under pseudonyms, and several travel books. As a deputy for Goiás (1872–1875) and a senator for Santa Catarina (1886–1889), Taunay was active in politics during the last years of the Brazilian Empire, particularly in the cause of immigration. He remained a monarchist during the first years of the Republic. He died in Rio de Janeiro.

The quality of Taunay's fiction varies. The only novel that has been republished, Inocência (1872), his second, is the story of an itinerant doctor who falls in love with the young daughter of a landowner in the distant interior of Mato Grosso and of their tragic death while being pursued by her jealous father. Its most notable quality is its realism: Taunay knew this remote area well, and his descriptions of it are much more authentic than those of his contemporary José Martiniano de Alencar. Two other novels are A mocidade de Trajano (1871), his first, which is set in the coffee-growing area of Campinas, São Paulo, and combines romantic plot and realistic setting, and O encilhamento (1893), a rather clumsy but interesting roman à clef about the scandal-ridden boom and bust of 1890–1891. His Memórias, up to 1870, published (according to his wishes) a century after his birth, in 1943, is one of the few valuable personal reminiscences written in nineteenth-century Brazil.

See alsoBrazil: 1808–1889; Literature: Brazil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Antônio Cândido, Formação da literatura brasileira, vol. 2, pp. 307-315.

Additional Bibliography

Machado, Irene A. Roteiro de leitura: Inocência de Visconde de Taunay. São Paulo: Editora Atica, 1997.

                                              John Gledson