Sousa Caldas

António Pereira de Sousa Caldas (* November 24, 1762 in Rio de Janeiro, † March 2, 1814 ) was a Brazilian poet and writer.

Already eight years old when the sickly, but gifted boy was sent by his parents to an uncle to Lisbon for training. At age 16, he began studying mathematics at the University of Coimbra. He developed an interest in French philosophy. In 1781 he was convicted of his views by the Inquisition. As a " heretic, Naturalist, Deist, blasphemous " and because of other views which were related to his sympathy for the French philosophy, he was put for six months in the Lisbon Convention of Rilhafoles. As a kind of disciplinary measure, he had to study the catechism. In 1784 he wrote by Jean -Jacques Rousseau excited Ode Ao homem selvagem and remained theologically unorthodox.

After a trip to Europe in 1789, he turned into a fairly devout Catholic and was ordained a priest in 1790. However, he abandoned his earlier ideas not fully up and tried in his writings the true Catholic faith with the idea of political freedoms of French philosophy to reconcile.

Honor

• Posthumously Sousa Caldas was named for the seat 34 ( Cadeira ), which was founded on the model of the Académie Française in 1897 Academia Brasileira de Letras, the Brazilian Academy of Letters. It thus belongs to the so-called " Immortals" ( Imortais ) of the Academy. First chair holder was the founding member João Manuel Pereira da Silva from 1897 to 1898.