No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Machado de Assis—Brazilian Writer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Extract
Taking into account the historical and geographical differences, as well as, of course, the nature and intrinsic value of the works concerned, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) occupies the same position in Brazilian literature as Camoens does in Portuguese, Cervantes in Spanish, Dante in Italian, Goethe in German, and Shakespeare in English.
In other words, to use symbolic language borrowed from geography itself, Machado de Assis undoubtedly represents the highest peak in Brazilian literature. He can claim to have produced its most significant work up to his time—perhaps no very great achievement. But what is remarkable is the fact that such work has remained so up to the present day, particularly that part produced during the last thirty years of his life.
- Type
- Books
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Miami 1968
References
1 Leading Brazilian man of letters, some of whose most important novels have been translated into English and published either in the United States or England (Epitaph of a Small Winner in 1952, Dom Casmurro in 1953, Philosopher or Dog? in 1954, and Esau and Jacob in 196
2 Machado de Assis was also the author of several plays, written mainly in the 1860's, and of innumerable cronicas (short commentaries on facts of daily life) published over a period of many years in the Brazilian press; he also wrote occasional pieces of literary criticism. But these are secondary aspects of his personality and for this reason we are not going to deal with them here.
3 Actually, in spite of the title given to the volume published in 1901, Machado de Assis did not include in it all of the poetry published in the previous volumes and he made a selection, setting many aside so that the present editions of his complete works usually include a part under the title of Collected Poetry in addition to the part called Complete Poetry (Obra Completa, by Machado de Assis, 3 Vols., Editora Jos6 Aguilar, Rio de Janeiro, 1959).
4 Manuel Bandeira, “O Poeta” in Obra Completa, Vol. Ill, pp. 4-6.
5 After 1880, Machado de Assis rarely turned again to poetry and then only on very special occasions. One of these was the death in 1904 of his wife, to whom he had been married for thirty-five years. In her memory he composed one of the best known and most admired sonnets in the Portuguese language, “Querida” (“My Love“).
6 The following words by Dudley Fitts in a review of Esau and Jacob can most appropriately be read with reference to those short stories: “The author of this book, Joaquin Maria Machado de Assis, who died in 1908 at the age of 69, celebrated and lovingly excoriated his native Brazil in a series of narratives that would by this time have won international acclaim if they had been written in a language more accessible than Portuguese” (New York Times Book Review, August 8, 1965).
7 Wilhelm Giese, “Machado de Assis” in Iberica, March, 1927. Writing on the French translation of Epitaph of a Small Winner, a French critic expressed, on the other hand, that Machado de Assis’ irony could be compared to that of Anatole France (Laffont-Bompiani, Dictionnaire des Oeuvres, Vol. Ill, Paris, 1953, p. 399).
8 Laffont-Bompiani, Dictionnaire, Vol. Ill, p. 212.
9 Taine, H., La philosophie de Van (Librairie Hachette & Cie., Paris, 1890)Google Scholar.