itself." Regionalism Part of Damasceno's work as a historian was linked to the gaucho theme, one of the characters that formed the state culture and a topic of great interest for the intellectuals of his generation. He was an articulator of concepts related to regionalism. At the time of his activity, the officialdom of Rio Grande do Sul was seeking to create a new cultural and political identity for the state and its people, at a time when the culture was becoming internationalized and the old cultural roots were dissolving. Damasceno took an active part in this process, analyzing which were the ruptures with the past and which were the continuities, and how they should be interpreted and re-signified, considering that modernity should necessarily be included in the new identity that was sought to be consolidated. He did not deny the past, but demanded an impartial interpretation of the old sources and condemned those who tried to uncritically resurrect old ways of being and seeing the world, bypassing the social changes that the times had brought, the so-called saudosistas, who summed up Rio Grande do Sul people in the figure of the gaucho, then erected as the ideal image of the brave, free, and fighting man, and centered the state's cultural heritage on the past of the campeiro ("countryman") the military, and the Portuguese contribution. An excerpt from one of the articles, that fueled the polemic with Vargas Netto, is illustrative of his position: Literature Early on, his poetic work was influenced by the Symbolism of poets such as Mallarmé, Rodenbach, and Verlaine and musicians such as Debussy, leaving two remarkable collections of pieces in this style. The first, Poemas do Sonho e da Desesperança (1925), is dedicated to his wife, Clara, and centers on the theme of mystical and spiritual love, tinged with melancholy, a sense of longing, and a desire to escape from reality, which was offset by hope and pity. The second, Poemas de Minha Cidade (1936), is one of the culminating points of Symbolism in Gaúcho (Rio Grande do Sul) lands, creating the same misty, crepuscular, and subjective atmospheres as the other work, but also adding touches of irony and humor, and revealing, as Cristiano Fretta states, "an artist aware of the universality of literature but extremely attached to the (provincial) environment in which he found himself", "which means that the artists of the time were