Lira dos Vinte Anos is a poetry anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 written by Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 author Álvares de Azevedo

Álvares de Azevedo

Manuel Antônio Álvares de Azevedo was a Brazilian Romantic poet, short story writer, playwright and essayist...

. Originally part of a project that would be written in partnership with Aureliano Lessa

Aureliano Lessa

Aureliano José Lessa was a Brazilian poet, adept of the "Ultra-Romanticism" movement. Born in Minas Gerais in 1828, he moved to São Paulo in 1847 to study Law, but received his bacharel degree at the Faculdade de Direito de Olinda, in Pernambuco, in the year of 1851...

 and Bernardo Guimarães

Bernardo Guimarães

Bernardo Joaquim da Silva Guimarães was a Brazilian poet and novelist. He is the author of the famous romances A Escrava Isaura and O Seminarista. He also introduced to the Brazilian poetry the "verso bestialógico" , poems whose verses are very nonsensical, although very metrical...

 called As Três Liras (The Three Lyres), it was published in 1853

1853 in literature

The year 1853 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*Charles Dickens writes Bleak House, the first English novel to feature a detective.*William Wells Brown becomes the first African American novelist to be published.-New books:...

. It is one of the few works whose publication was prepared by Álvares himself, due to his premature death on April 25, 1852.

The book is divided in three parts: the "Ariel

Ariel (The Tempest)

Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved...

 Face" (first and third parts) and the "Caliban

Caliban

Caliban is a character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.Caliban may also refer to:* Caliban , a moon of Uranus* Caliban , a metalcore band from Germany* Caliban , an acoustic Celtic folk duo...

 Face" (second part), as Álvares calls them. While the poems of the Ariel Face feature extreme sentimentalism

Sentimentalism

Sentimentalism is used in different ways:* Sentimentalism , a theory in moral epistemology concerning how one knows moral truths; also known as moral sense theory* Sentimentalism , a form of literary discourse...

, platonic love

Platonic love

Platonic love is a chaste and strong type of love that is non-sexual.-Amor Platonicus:The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the 15th century by the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue the Symposium, which has...

, melancholy, among others, the poems of the Caliban Face are heavily morbid, sarcastic and ironic.

From its initial publication in 1853, it would suffer many re-edits, getting to its current form in 1942.