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Literary and Cultural Circulation: Machado de Assis and Théodule-Armand Ribot*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2015

José Luís Jobim
José Luís Jobim*
Affiliation:
Rua Paissandu 186 ap. 104, CEP 22210-080, Rio de Janeiro – RJ, Brazil. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper’s argument is that in the case of Ibero-America, the literary or cultural insertion of elements from other places is not only or predominantly determined by the meaning that the element had in its supposed place of origin, but, rather, by the specific context where this element is subsequently placed. It is the study of this context that can generate better explanations not only about the reasons for this (and not another) element having been ‘imported’ but also about the meaning that it will have in the new context, in connection with the other elements that are also present there. After giving some answers from a selected number of scholars to the question of how does a given literary or cultural element, with an assumed origin in a given context, insert itself in another context, this paper will present, as a case study, the supposed ‘importation’ by Machado de Assis of the ideas of Théodule-Armand Ribot, demonstrating that the Brazilian author did not reproduce ‘imported’ elements, maintaining them in the terms in which they were articulated in the work of the French writer in their original context, but rather transformed them into something else.

Type
Focus: A Dialogue of Cultures
Information
European Review , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 406 - 420
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Translated by Dr Lisa Shaw (Reader in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Department of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies, University of Liverpool).

References

References and Notes

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25.If the narrator of the most well-known novel by Machado de Assis declares that he wrote that work ‘with the quill of mockery and the ink of melancholy’, Rocha concludes: ‘The act of appropriating other cultures favours the critical distance necessary to write with the quill of mockery. And the awareness of his own place in the Republic of Letters gives rise to the ink of melancholy. Via the simple act of recycling tradition in an unconventional way, new elements emerge, creating the conditions necessary for far-reaching formal daring’ – de Castro Rocha, J. Cezar (2013) Machado de Assis: por uma poética da emulação (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira), (Ref. 9, p. 330).Google Scholar