Machado de Assis and the matter of creation: artistic achievement in Cantiga de Esponsais (A Marriage Song) and Um Homem Célebre (A Remarkable Man) - DOI: 10.4025/actascihumansoc.v25i2.2177

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the textualization problem of Machado de Assis thinking aspects which are present in the creation of characters-as-artists components of the narrative plot in “Cantiga de esponsais” and “Um homem célebre”. Such poetic personalities - true simulacrums of the author’s implicit vision about the fallacy of the complete plenitude of artistic expression and achievement - are used ironically by Machado de Assis in the short- stories cited above, resulting from proper narratives of the parody and caricature process. In contextual terms, the fictionalization of these characters can be discussed as a writer’s critical attitude to the idiosyncrasies of the scientific and socio-cultural thinking of his time in so far as his mechanistic determinism have not demonstrated enough to explain the reality and conditions of the complexity of nature and function of artistic creation