| Machado de Assis: Toward a Poetics of Emulation Contributor(s): de Castro Rocha, Joćo Cezar (Author), Thomson-Deveaux, Flora (Translator) |
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ISBN: 1611861810 ISBN-13: 9781611861815 Publisher: Michigan State University Press OUR PRICE: $22.46 Product Type: Paperback Published: October 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Caribbean & Latin American - Philosophy | Criticism - Literary Criticism | European - General |
| Dewey: 810.997 |
| Series: Studies in Violence, Mimesis, & Culture |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.95 lbs) 308 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Latin America |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This book offers an alternative explanation for one of the core dilemmas of Brazilian literary criticism: the "midlife crisis" Machado de Assis underwent from 1878 to 1880, the result of which was the writing of The Posthumous Memoirs of Br s Cubas, as well as the remarkable production of his mature years--with an emphasis on his masterpiece, Dom Casmurro. At the center of this alternative explanation, Castro Rocha situates the fallout from the success enjoyed by E a de Queir s with the publication of Cousin Bas lio and Machado's two long texts condemning the author and his work. Literary and aesthetic rivalries come to the fore, allowing for a new theoretical framework based on a literary appropriation of "thick description," the method proposed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz. From this method, Castro Rocha derives his key hypothesis: an unforeseen consequence of Machado's reaction to E a's novel was a return to the classical notion of aemulatio, which led Machado to develop a "poetics of emulation." |
Contributor Bio(s): De Castro Rocha, Joao Cezar: - Joćo Cezar de Castro Rocha is Professor of Comparative Literature at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. He is the Endowed Chair Machado de Assis of Latin American Studies (Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana / Brazilian Embassy, Mexico, 2010), and he has edited more than twenty books, among which are a collection of six volumes of Machado de Assis's short stories. |