Nísia Floresta

• Name — Nísia Floresta • Birth Name — Dionísia Gonçalves Pinto • Born — 12 October 1810 • Birthplace — Papari, Brazil • Died — 24 April 1885 • Place of death — Rouen, France • Occupation — Educator, writer, philosopher • Genre — Poetry, nonfiction, travelogue • Subjects — Social issues, philosophy, travel, feminism, education • Language — * Portuguese, French, Italian • Spouse — Manuel Augusto de Faria Rocha (m. married 1828) • Children — 2

Dionísia Gonçalves Pinto was born October 12, 1810 in Papari, in the north eastern province of Rio Grande do Norte. She created the name Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta as pseudonym under which she published her written works. The name Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta was an act of self-construction under which she wrote, taught, and lived. Each component of the name was intentional and significant. ‘Floresta’ after her parents’ land where she was born, ‘Brasileira’ as a patriotic statement of her identification with the newly independent Brazil, and ‘Augusta’ in homage to her late husband, Manuel Augusto de Faria Rocha. Floresta was a public intellectual who achieved international recognition during her lifetime. Her work extends well beyond her free translation of Mary Woolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman for which she is mostly known (made in 1832 when she was only 22 years of age), and includes poetry, travel writings, and philosophical essays on morality and education. Most of these works have autobiographical content and are concerned with female virtues and moral upbringing. While the majority of Floresta’s works are in Portuguese, she also wrote in French and Italian, and some of her works were translated to English, Italian, and French during her lifetime, ensuring that her ideas circulated well beyond Brazil. There were many significant events in Floresta's early life that shaped her work and future. In 1823 Floresta married at the age of thirteen, but quickly returned to her family. Five years later in 1828 Floresta's father was assassinated at the command of a powerful member of the state's elite. That same year, she married Manuel Augusto de Faria Rocha, who she had two children with. Manuel Augusto died only seven months after the birth of their second child, leaving Floresta to support herself and two very young children, which she did by teaching. In 1832, Floresta's published her first work in Recife, and shortly afterwards the family moved to Porto Alegre. Then in 1837, Floresta and her family moved to Rio de Janeiro where she established the Augusto College school for girls, where she taught and published her works for more than ten years.

Floresta resigned as director of Augusto College in 1849 and traveled to Europe with her daughter after a serious horse riding accident. During this time, she was exposed to Comtean positivism through a History of Humanity course taught by Auguste Comte himself at the Palais Cardinal in Paris. She returned to Brazil in 1852 and dedicated herself to writing newspaper articles, which were later compiled into her Opúsculo humanitário, as well as other works such as Dedicação de uma amiga and Páginas de uma vida obscura. She volunteered as a nurse during a 1855 cholera epidemic in Rio de Janeiro before leaving for Europe again in 1856. Floresta stayed in Europe from 1856 to 1872, during which time she traveled through Italy and Greece, publishing works in French and writing travel accounts. Between 1870 and 1871, she left Paris, on account of the Prussian siege, and traveled to England and Portugal before returning to Brazil. She was in Brazil from 1872 to 1875 during the abolitionist campaign led by Joaquim Nabuco, although little is known about her life during this period. She returned to Europe in 1875 and stayed in London, Lisbon, and Paris. She published her last work, Fragments d'un Ouvrage Inédit: Notes Biographiques, in France in 1878. These trips to Europe exposed her to many new ideas and ways of thinking, such as Comtean positivism, that further radicalized her feminism. On April 24, 1885, Floresta died from pneumonia in Rouen, France, at age 74. She was buried in the Bonsecours cemetery in France where she lived. In August 1954, nearly seventy years later, her remains were taken to her hometown and placed in a tomb at the Floresta farm where she was born.

• Direitos das mulheres e injustiça dos homens (Women's rights and injustice of men), 1832 • Conselhos à minha filha (Advice to my daughter), 1842 • Daciz ou A jovem completa (Daciz or The complete young woman), 1847 • Fany ou O modelo das donzelas (Fany or The model of the maidens), 1847 • Discurso que às suas educandas diriga Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta (Speech to her students led Nísia Floresta Brazilian Augusta), 1847 • A lágrima de um Caeté (The tear of a caeté), 1847 • Dedicação de uma amiga (Dedication of a friend), 1850 • Opúsculo humanitário (Humanitarian brochure), 1853 • Páginas de uma vida obscura (Pages of a dark life), 1855 • A Mulher (The woman), 1859 • Trois ans en Italie, suivis d’un voyage en Grèce (Three years in Italy, followed by a trip to Greece), 1870 • Le Brésil (Brasil), 1871 • Fragments d'um ouvrage inèdit: notes biographiques (Fragments of an old work: biographical notes), 1878

Floresta's role and relevance in the evolution of feminism in Brazil and in the emancipation of women in the country is undeniable. However, it is necessary to consider the politics of the author's own time and the context that she worked within. Scholars have criticized her somewhat ambivalent feminist views for not being militant enough and for shifting between avant-garde and conservative. For Constância Lima Duarte, author of the book Nísia Floresta: Vida e Obra (Nísia Floresta: Life and Work), Floresta fits into what she calls “good feminism.” This means that she did not intend to substantially change social relations, keeping women within the ideological limits of the private sphere. She wanted to improve women's education and empowerment while ensuring that they were still responsible for childrearing and other housework. Another author to address this ambivalence is Branca Moreira Alves, for whom Floresta's feminism contains a romantic view of women where dedication to the family and home is still the guiding expectation. Floresta suggested several ways to maintain this traditional family system and keep a home, husband, and children in her various works. Scholars have also acknowledged the ideological shift that Floresta underwent as a writer and a feminist. In her first work, she rejected radical changes to the present social order. She made it clear that she wanted things to stay in their current state and was not trying to impose any major changes. After her travels in Europe, however, her second work on the subject was more sharply analytical of the current education system and called for large-scale reform. She also expressed concerns about an ignorant population being open to manipulation.

Nísia Floresta was recorded at birth as Dionísia Gonçalves Pinto. The authorities additionally record the headings Nisia Floresta and Dionísia Faria da Rocha. Her recorded language was French.