Machado de Assis

Texts about Brazilian literature and authors written by Machado de Assis and originally published in the Brazilian press between 1856 and 1907, organized chronologically, with introductory text on Machado de Assis. Includes some letters and speeches.

The life of the Empress Helena coincided with the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire. Helena made the historic pilgrimage to Palestine, found pieces of wood from the true cross, and built churches at Bethlehem and Olivet.

Two gentlemen standing outside a church in Rio de Janeiro see a respectable lady emerge - one of them has an unexpected, and to him inexplicable story to tell about her past life as a prostitute; a popular composer of polkas burns the midnight oil in a desperate attempt to create great classical music; a teenager finds himself caught up by the sight of the bare arms of an older woman who lives with his employer; an impoverished, lazy young man turns to the lucrative trade of catching runaway slaves; dull, monotonous Mariana has a tiff with her husband about the hat he wears to town, and decides to sing "the Marseillaise of matrimony" by going off on a trip to town herself with her more daring, flirtatious friend Sophia.... These are some of the situations developed in these stories, some of the most brilliant to have been written in the nineteenth century. They echo Poe and Gogol, they anticipate Joyce, they have been compared to contemporary works by Chekhov, Maupassant, and Henry James, yet they are not quite like any of these. Anyone who has read Epitaph of a Small Winner or Dom Casmurro, his most famous novels, will want to savour these stories - those who haven't, will find them a varied and enjoyable introduction to Machado's work.

Grade Level 7-9

A collection of Machado de Assis' contributions to the short-lived O Espelho, published in late 1859 and early 1860. "O Espelho foi um pequeno jornal que circulou no Rio de Janeiro, no segundo semestre de 1859, e que era publicado aos domingos. Em formato tabloide, tinha apenas 12 páginas, nas quais se espremiam poemas, romances em forma de folhetim, crônicas, artigos sobre assuntos variados e críticas teatrais. Dirigido por Francisco Eleutério de Sousa, contou com colaboradores como Casimiro de Abreu e Moreira de Azevedo. Machado escreveu nos 19 números de jornal. E estre livro reproduz todos os textos em prosa de sua autoria: crônicas que ele intitulou 'Aquarelas', o artigo 'A Reforma pelo jornal' e a série 'Revista de teatros'. A importância dessa produção não é pequena; pode-se dizer que estamos diante do nascimento do jornalista profissional que se tornou Machado de Assis nessa fase de sua vida, bem como do início de um fecundo amadurecimento intelectual que se processou ao longo da década de 1860 e que o tornou conhecido antes mesmo de sua consagração como ficcionista"--P. of cover.

Dom Casmurro, publicado pela primeira vez em 1899, é um dos romances realistas mais importantes de Machado de Assis, considerado por alguns sua obra-prima. O livro narra a história de Bento Gonçalves desde sua juventude, abordando temas como religião, adultério e ambiguidade moral.

"Till now, madness has been thought a small island in an ocean of sanity. I am beginning to suspect that it is not an island at all but a continent." Brilliant physician Sima̋o Bacamarte sacrifices a prestigious career to return home and dedicate himself to the budding field of psychology. Bacamarte opens the first asylum in Brazil hoping to crown himself and his hometown with "imperishable laurels." But the doctor begins to see signs of insanity in more and more of his neighbors ...

Briefly discusses different types of stories and encourages the reader to complete and compose stories.

Widely acclaimed as the progenitor of twentieth-century Latin American fiction, Machado de Assis (1839-1908)--the son of a mulatto father and a washerwoman, and the grandson of freed slaves--was hailed in his lifetime as Brazil's greatest writer. His prodigious output of novels, plays, and stories rivaled contemporaries like Chekhov, Flaubert, and Maupassant, but, shockingly, he was barely translated into English until 1963 and still lacks proper recognition today. Drawn to the master's psychologically probing tales of fin-de-siecle Rio de Janeiro, a world populated with dissolute plutocrats, grasping parvenus, and struggling spinsters, acclaimed translators Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson have now combined Machado's seven short-story collections into one volume, featuring seventy-six stories, a dozen appearing in English for the first time. Born in the outskirts of Rio, Machado displayed a precocious interest in books and languages and, despite his impoverished background, miraculously became a well-known intellectual figure in Brazil's capital by his early twenties. His daring narrative techniques and coolly ironic voice resemble those of Thomas Hardy and Henry James, but more than either of these writers, Machado engages in an open playfulness with his reader--as when his narrator toys with readers' expectations of what makes a female heroine in "Miss Dollar," or questions the sincerity of a slave's concern for his dying master in "The Tale of the Cabriolet." Predominantly set in the late nineteenth-century aspiring world of Rio de Janeiro--a city in the midst of an intense transformation from colonial backwater to imperial metropolis--the postcolonial realism of Machado's stories anticipates a dominant theme of twentieth-century literature. Readers witness the bourgeoisie of Rio both at play, and, occasionally, attempting to be serious, as depicted by the chief character of "The Alienist," who makes naively grandiose claims for his Brazilian hometown at the expense of the cultural capitals of Europe. Signifiers of new wealth and social status abound through the landmarks that populate Machado's stories, enlivening a world in the throes of transformation: from the elegant gardens of Passeio Público and the vibrant Rua do Ouvidor--the long, narrow street of fashionable shops, theaters and cafés, "the Via Dolorosa of long-suffering husbands"--to the port areas of Saúde and Gamboa, and the former Valongo slave market. One of the greatest masters of the twentieth century, Machado reveals himself to be an obsessive collector of other people's lives, who writes: "There are no mysteries for an author who can scrutinize every nook and cranny of the human heart." Now, The Collected Stories of Machado de Assis brings together, for the first time in English, all of the stories contained in the seven collections published in his lifetime, from 1870 to 1906. A landmark literary event, this majestic translation reintroduces a literary giant who must finally be integrated into the world literary canon.

215 p. : 23 cm