Uma literatura deformada: alegoria e romance em Esaú e Jacó, de Machado de Assis

Abstract

This work seeks to analyze the presence of allegory in the novel Esaú e Jacó (1904), by Machado de Assis. The analyzes seek to show the tension between the allegorical form and the constituent elements of the 19th century realistic novel and discuss how this form, introduced as a kind of foreign body in the novel, gains aesthetic value through the specific use of satire, which affects exactly on the allegorical procedure and produces a specific way of functioning of the allegorical mode within a realistic novel. The treatment of the text is guided by two fundamental axes, which we intend to synthesize: on the one hand, the formal consequences of the use of allegory, especially with regard to time, the double and the narrator; on the other hand, the concrete historical materials that are treated allegorically, namely, the Encilhamento episode and the republican transition. The fundamental argument is that the allegorical mode of representation is not random but is inscribed in the specific manifestation of these three phenomena. As a vanishing point for the arguments developed is the discussion about the place of Machado de Assis in national literary history, as presented by Antonio Candido in his Formação da Literatura Brasileira (1959), since the presence of allegories in the composition of his novel shows a Machado de Assis who distances himself from the combination of social representation and psychological analysis. The thesis seeks to argue, at this point, that the presence of the allegory would be a formal indication that the formative process reaches an incomplete conclusion.