Mystery under the lights of arcadia

On a weekend of the year of 1784, the Narrator meets Tomás Antonio Gonzaga through priest Luís Vieira. Three years later, in 1792, when Gonzaga became involved in the Minas Inconfidência Movement and was about to be exiled, the Narrator fulfilled his promise to visit him at the Fortress of the Patriarch of Saint Joseph of the Cobras Island. Gonzaga transfers his spirit to the young Storyteller so that he can fulfill an important mission that was not simply to live an intense love with Marilia, but also the difficult mission of a mystery and adventure task involving Judas Iscariot at the last supper with Jesus. Christ. The whole plot takes place in a genuinely arcadic space, and Minas Gerais becomes the scene of all this intrigue in the time of the gold cycle.

This novel has a dubious character because the author believes it was dictated by Tomás Antonio Gonzaga who, subjectively, proposed to surprise the reader by dictating a novel in which he idealizes his love for Marilia, living intensely beyond what he had written in his poems, whose book was titled "Marília de Dirceu". In this novel dictated by him, credibility is fiction and the story takes place on a farm near Vila Rica de Ouro Preto - Minas Gerais, in the late eighteenth century. The plot is surprising because the story involves love, mystery and adventure, linking important points of Literary Arcadism.

Marilia, a noble and very delicate girl from the society of Vila Rica de Ouro Preto, leaves her life in the city to become a peasant and live her great love with Dirceu. After both marry, Dirceu has a mysterious mission to accomplish, and yet Marilia, like Helena de Troy, while awaiting his return, founds a charming city long hidden from the eyes of Brazilians. The city chosen by Tomas Antonio Gonzaga was Lavras Novas, which until today is seen as a legendary and wonderful city that is hidden in one of the mountains of Minas Gerais.