In 1902,[citation needed] Dantas published the one-act verse play A Ceia dos Cardeais (The Dinner of the Cardinals).

[3] In 1947, he published the play Frei António das Chagas about a Portuguese soldier's conversion to becoming a mystic.

[12] According to Ronald Hilton, Dantas had established himself as the dominant figure of the Portuguese literary scene in the early twentieth century.

[1]: 85  In 1916, Dantas came under attack from Futurist artist and writer Almada Negreiros through his Manifesto Anti-Dantas, which employed a radical critique of contemporary Portuguese culture.

[13]: 42  Ignacio Infante wrote that Dantas was seen to represent an "older reactionary condition" which was keeping the Portuguese people in an alleged state of "cultural degradation".