This paper presents Álvares de Azevedo's ideas on dramaturgy which were expounded in a direct form mainly in Carta sobre a atualidade do teatro entre nós and in the preface to Macario. Then an analysis of Um cadáver de poeta is developed which attempts to illustrate the theory of the dramatic genre defended by Puff, the narrator o/Macario.
Brazilian theater; romantic drama; transcendence; byronic hero; romantic grotesque