FOUR COLLECTIONS OF SHORT STORIES BY MACHADO DE ASSIS: ROMANTIC NARRATIVES AND NEW DIRECTIONS (BRAZIL).
Item
-
Title
-
FOUR COLLECTIONS OF SHORT STORIES BY MACHADO DE ASSIS: ROMANTIC NARRATIVES AND NEW DIRECTIONS (BRAZIL).
-
Identifier
-
AAI8501127
-
identifier
-
8501127
-
Creator
-
CRAVZOW, ROY EDWARD.
-
Contributor
-
Gregory Rabassa
-
Date
-
1984
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, Latin American
-
Abstract
-
During his lifetime, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) published seven books containing short stories. They were: Contos Fluminenses (1870), Historias da Meia-Noite (1873), Papeis Avulsos (1882), Historias sem Data (1884), Varias Historias (1896), Paginas Recolhidas (1899), and Reliquias de Casa Velha (1906). Of the two hundred seventeen short stories written by him, only seventy-six appeared in the above seven volumes that he had organized.;This study concentrated upon the first two volumes composed of predominantly romantic narratives and on the following two collections which indicate and confirm a completely new direction upon which Machado de Assis had embarked. Each story in the four collections was analyzed as were other stories written at about the same time but not selected for a volume.;From the predominantly romantic narratives of Contos Fluminenses and Historias da Meia-Noite, Machado de Assis narrowed his focus in Papeis Avulsos and Historias sem Data to an analysis of human behavior and thought while expanding his study of men and women to the level of universality. In his earlier short stories, he had produced stereotypical characters and had placed them in romantic situations. Later he reached the point in his intellectual development where he wanted to and was able to create individual human beings who, by nature of their humanity, found themselves immersed in universal and timeless predicaments in which their fears and dreams controlled their thoughts and actions. As an added element, the storyteller too had evolved. From the all-knowing, conventional author in the first two volumes, in many stories written after 1880 Machado had also created narrators who had become as human as the characters. Their words about others must be judged by what they purposely or inadvertently reveal about themselves. The stories of Papeis Avulsos and Historias sem Data, going in these new directions and exhibiting his perception and understanding of human nature, confirm the status of Machado de Assis not only as Brazil's most important writer of fiction but also as a major if still only partially discovered figure in the literature of the world.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
-
Program
-
Comparative Literature
