This thesis presents critical biographies of four writers who were linked by kinship and their writing. Bernardo Guimarães, Alphonsus de Guimaraens, João Alphonsus e Alphonsus de Guimaraens Filho belong to four generations of a family devoted to literature. Here, their lives and writings come together in a field that is at once imaginary, documentary and real, that maps out their relationships with their peers as well as with the literature of their times. A reading of the works of these authors in their social context reveals the tendency of all four to transform kinship links into artistic alliances, and their shared capacity to exchange distinct aesthetic experiences in such a way as to assuage the solitude of their work in the sharing of their literary experiences: the spirit of adventure of Bernardo Guimarães the boldness of his choice of themes and his aesthetic approach; the sedentary nostalgia for the centres of cultural innovation and a concentration on an elegance of writing on the part of Alphonsus de Guimaraens; an impulse for renovation, a perspicacity in the observation of the social and political scene and a willingness to preserve and disseminate the work of previous generations in the case of João Alphonsus; and, a similar respect for the past coupled with the elaboration of traditional poetic forms in his own writing in the work of Alphonsus Filho.