The shadow of the father

Abstract

The year 1997 will mark 400 years since the death of Jose de Anchieta - and a good chance that "The Apostle of Brazil" will be canonized. A careful survey of his written work - letters, lyrical and epic poems, a grammar, a catechism and several aulas (religi­ous plays) allows an almost complete reconstruction of the then-reigning Weltanschaung: the Europe of the cinquecento, expansionist in both temporal and spiritual sense, in the wake of the Counter-Reformation. From this angle the role of the Jesuits and the founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola, takes on very special significance, both as catalist of European trends of thought (mainly in terms of M. Foucault's analogia and convenientia) and as a disseminator of those same trends, this time in extra-European terms, via religious conversion and colonization.