Literatura e discurso: práticas de leitores do final do século XIX no Brasil pelo olhar de Machado de Assis

Abstract

The objective of this research is to understand how Machado de Assis, in his literary works, represented and enunciated readers and some reading practices in late 19th century Brazil. To that end, we selected three of Machado s works: "The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas" (1881), Quincas Borba - Philosopher or Dog" (1891) and Dom Casmurro - Lord Taciturn" (1899). To build our theoretical basis we took to historicizing Foucault's interest in the theme of Literature, distinguishing five of the philosopher s positions regarding that field. Therefore, we analyzed Machado s works in light of the theoretical and methodological support of Michel Foucault s considerations taking into account his notions of simulacrum" and "transgression" to read those literary texts. Subsequently, we approach Foucaultian archaeological perspective in the field of discourse studies in its concepts of "statement", "series", "subject", "materiality", "associated field", "discourse" and archive with the purpose of identifying and describing sets of statements" and "discursive formations . Our analyzes, in their turn, describe three "discursive formations", namely: Late 19 th century readers, according to Machado de Assis , Characteristics of readers at the end of the 19 th century, according to Machado de Assis and Late 19 th century ways to read, according to Machado de Assis." We reach the conclusion that such discursive formations and statements characterize a discursive archive, that is: Late 19 th century readers practices, according to Machado de Assis." This discursive archive demonstrably proves the importance of Machado de Assis, among many others he has proved to have, as a tutor for reading conduct, as readers were beginning to multiply in Brazil at the end of the 19 th century. Thus, Machado weaves statements of truths", materializing in his works the social, historical and cultural conditions of the space in which he lived and practices of readers with whom he interacted. Lastly, we highlight that the purpose of our thesis was achieved and that the theoretical and methodological contributions mobilized were sufficient and productive for our analyzes without, admittedly, exhausting the possibilities of the corpus with a view to our future analyzes of literary texts from a Foucaultian perspective.