Machado de Assis and Narrative Theory

Language, Imitation, Art, and Verisimilitude in the Last Six Novels

Earl E. Fitz

2019
222 pages
$37.95
ISBN 9781684481125
Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory

This book makes the argument that Machado de Assis, hailed as one of Latin American literature's greatest writers, was also a major theoretician of the modern novel form. Steeped in the works of Western literature and an imaginative reader of French Symbolist poetry, Machado creates, between 1880 and 1908, a "new narrative," one that will presage the groundbreaking theories of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure by showing how even the language of narrative cannot escape being elusive and ambiguous in terms of meaning. It is from this discovery about the nature of language as a self-referential semiotic system that Machado crafts his "new narrative." Long celebrated in Brazil as a dazzlingly original writer, Machado has struggled to gain respect and attention outside the Luso-Brazilian ken. He is the epitome of the "outsider" or "marginal," the iconoclastic and wildly innovative genius who hails from a culture rarely studied in the Western literary hierarchy and so consigned to the status of "eccentric." Had the Brazilian master written not in Portuguese but English, French, or German, he would today be regarded as one of the true exemplars of the modern novel, in expression as well as in theory.

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Reviews

"Along with the translation of more works by Brazilian writers and scholars alike, books like Machado de Assis and Narrative Theory pave the way for the reception of literary works that, otherwise, remain regrettably off the radar even among many in academia." - Hispanic Review, Winter 2022

"Indeed, the rhythm of the novel alternates continually between self-analysis and depiction of exterior realities. It might remind us of a scenic drive, where we enjoy a rich variety of natural sights, but feel the need to stop from time to time to clean our specs. For this reason, Earl Fitz's book should be appreciated as a complement to the many other excellent studies of Machado's relation to a plentiful external landscape. Lest we become overly confident about our ability to know these realities, we should pause and, considering perspectives like those of this book, clean our glasses." - Journal of Lusophone Studies, 4.2

"Earl E. Fitz advances the question of language as key to innovation and modernity in the mature works of Machado de Assis. Fitz attributes his departure from realism to a new awareness of the mutability, instability, self-referentiality and inescapable ambiguity of language in relation to meaning. What the novels are really about is not what they seem." - K. David Jackson, Yale University

"Is Machado de Assis a theoretician of the novel? Earl Fitz's book is a fascinating response to such a question. In this exciting journey through the writer's late novels, we learn that Machado didn't tell us what he was thinking; differently, he showed us the very act of thinking through language. It's worth reading: Fitz's passion for Machado is contagious." - Pedro Meira Monteiro, Princeton University

"A masterwork of original and seminal scholarship that rescues a critically important Latin American writer from an undeserved obscurity." - Midwest Book Review

"[Earl E. Fitz] offers careful and detailed readings of Machado's canonical works that provide insight into Machado's narrative constructions. Ultimately, Fitz's study provides a strong argument for why scholars interested in narrative theory should give, if not renewed, then new attention to the work of Machado de Assis." - Bulletin of Spanish Studies, November 2020

"Fitz's study makes a vital contribution to Machadoan criticism.... Any reader interested in the intersection of semiotics, epistemology, narrative theory, and the history of the novel will greatly benefit from this book." - Hispania, December 2020

About the author:

Earl E. Fitz is a professor of Portuguese, Spanish, and comparative literature at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Distributed by Rutgers University Press

Cloth: $150.00, 978-1-6844-8113-2; EPUB: $37.95, 978-1-6844-8114-9