Machado de Assis: style and authorship

Abstract

A recurrent notion in the Brazilian literary criticism of the 19th century, the style was associated with grammatical accuracy, the figure of the author, the idea of ornament, expression of good writing and speaking, with a strong presence in the pulpit and on the tribune. Even though Machado de Assis claimed its importance in the work of every writer and even in science, he opposed the conceptions of style in use in his time, as he registered in “A nova geração”, “O velho senado” and “Teoria do medalhão”. Bearing in mind the selected corpus of Machado's work, the article proposes the following discussion: in his writing, by making use of rhetoric, in particular ekphrasis, as well as irony and parody, Machado de Assis not only jeopardizes a notion that has become cliché, but also builds his own style, his authorial identity, distanced from the patronymic.