O Uraguay, de Basílio da Gama: questões retórico-políticas coloniais entre a Antiguidade e a Modernidade

This paper brings the first results of a research project on the use of the rhetorical and poetical machinery of Antiquity during the troublesome Portuguese 18th century, as well as its impact on the Portuguese American colony. We propose that the Early Modernity used discursive elements from the Ancient World as an instrument for the practical and symbolic construction of a specific discourse on the conflicts taking place in the colonies, and we take the proem of O Uraguay, by Basilio da Gama, as an example for the observation and analysis of this phenomenon.