Renata Philippov. Professor of English Language and Literatures. Federal University of Sao Paulo- Brazil. Edgar Allan Poe and Machado de Assis: how did.
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Renata Philippov Professor of English Language and Literatures Federal University of Sao Paulo- Brazil
Edgar Allan Poe and Machado de Assis: how did Machado read Poe?
This paper aims at addressing possible connections between Edgar Allan Poe’s and Machado de Assis’ works and literary projects. It is part of a much larger post-doctoral study whose scope has to do with Poe’s reception in Brazil during the second half of the 19th century, a reception which probably occurred through the mediation of French authors such as Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé. Brazil was then still an Empire closely linked to Portugal, struggling to attain its total political, economic and cultural independence from its colonizer. If the Independence of the country had been signed in 1822, after a period of three hundred years of colonization, exploration and fierce control from Portugal, in the second half of the century the country still had strong bonds tying it to the once “mother land” and to the European continent. In fact, the Emperor, Peter the Second, belonged to the Portuguese royal family, Brazilian trade largely depended upon Portugal and its economic partners, such as England, culture based itself on
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European models, especially the French one 1.; in short, Brazil still had to attain full independence and forge its own models for the economy, politics and culture. In terms of literature, a reading public was being formed. Those who did not read French had access to literary pieces through poetry and novels published in installments in local newspapers and periodicals that, many times, simply translated works from French and English authors. Those who had a higher educational level and belonged to higher social brackets finished their studies in Europe, for universities in Brazil simply did not exist2. Books from acclaimed European novelists, such as Victor Hugo, François-René de Chateaubriand and Charles Dickens, were imported, but only a few had full access to them and were able to understand foreign languages, especially French. There was, therefore, a market for translations and a reading public eager to get in contact with novels and poetry originally published in Europe. Within this context of close contact with European models, Brazilian literature still resorted to them for themes, characters and plots. Famous writers such as José de Alencar turned to Chateaubriand and other French romantic writers to create his own literature. If Portuguese models began to
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French was the prevailing foreign language of the elite. The first colleges had barely opened and catered for Law, Medical School and Engineering. The first university in Brazil would only open in the 1930´s in the State of Sao Paulo – the University of Sao Paulo. 2
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be set aside, other European models replaced them in the reading public’s taste. 3 Brazil would have to wait for Machado de Assis in the second half of the 19th century to see the onset of its full literary independence from Europe. Nowadays regarded as the most influential Brazilian writer of all times, with translations into many languages and academic studies dedicated to his works at universities all over the world, Machado was then a beginning author trying to reach fame and pay his bills. Born into an extremely poor family, son of an illiterate clothes-washer, stemming from Rio de Janeiro’s slums, a free mulatto when slavery still existed in the country, Machado de Assis was a self-taught man who made his way through literature and journalism. Against all adversities posed to someone from his background, Machado slowly gained reputation, recognition and knowledge: he taught himself how to read in English and French and helped found the Brazilian Academy of Letters, something totally unforeseen in a society still deeply rooted in aristocratic ideals4 and prejudice. Possessing a strong sense of criticism against the literary values and models of his times, Machado defended the creation of a Brazilian model for literature, a project he constantly referred to and deeply discussed in a 3
Reputable Brazilian novelists and poets defended a local literary project in which Portuguese models should be neglected so as to guarantee some cultural and literary independence from the motherland. 4 Brazil was then in a period called Second Empire. Slavery would only be totally abolished in 1888, and the Republic would be signed in 1889.
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famous essay called “Instinto de Nacionalidade” [Instinct of Nationality]. Specifically criticizing romantic paradigms regarding the supremacy of love, idealism, nature, freedom of thought, Machado believed literature should be used to portray and criticize injustice and society. However, he was neither a Realist nor a Naturalist, for many of his writings mix detailed descriptions of his milieu and times with fantastic elements, irony, humor and wit. In this sense, Edgar Allan Poe and Machado de Assis converge in many aspects. How did Machado, isolated in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the Empire, yet a small provincial city, get in touch with Edgar Allan Poe’s works? How relevant would those be for Machado’s literary project of creating a National literature, independent from European patterns? As mentioned before, famous European writers were read among those cultured Brazilians with access to imported books and translations published in local newspapers. Therefore, one such European author was Charles Baudelaire, whose translations of Poe’s works into French reached Brazil and Machado de Assis, more specifically. However, Machado also read in English and published a translation of “The Raven” into Portuguese, giving it a different touch from the original, with diverse meter and prose-like style, a deliberate decision so as to approach the Portuguese metric style and maintain a certain literary independence with regards to
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the original. In fact, Machado’s version is considered to be the first, if not one of the best, translations ever made of Poe’s poem. This was not the only occasion, though, when Poe’s works occupied Machado’s thoughts. Critics such as Cunha (1995), Bellei (1992) and Daghlian (1999), among many others, see many points in common between both authors. Both developed a well-wrought literary project and conceived all their works so as to fit within such project. Both sought recognition through their literary and journalistic work, although it is well-known that Poe underwent ups and downs in his career, being sometimes highly praised and sometimes totally neglected and despised, unlike Machado, who soon was regarded with admiration. Both were severe critics of their times and contemporaries. Both dedicated much time to publishing in newspapers and periodicals, something quite common in Brazil, the US and Europe at the time. Both elected a literary genre as the perfect environment for their philosophical and literary projects: the short story. Both shared some themes, atmosphere of gloom and awe, character development, wit and an acid sense of humor. If Poe is considered the master of the short story as a genre in 19th century American literature, although not a unanimity in his canon, the same may be said of Machado de Assis. If Poe implemented his own way of writing short stories, adapting a genre he did not create, but, at the same
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time, creating sub-genres such as the detective story, the same may be said of Machado. Therefore, the short story seems to be a very strong bond linking both writers, who considered it to be the “genre par excellence” to express content from the human soul and discuss the role of man in a developing fast-paced society. In fact, Poe wrote essays such as “The Poetic Principle”, “Philosophy of Composition” and many fragments from Marginalia, A Chapter of Suggestions, Fifty Suggestions and Marginal Thoughts to discuss some of the characteristics of a short story according to his literary project: the importance of brevity, the theory of the preconceived effect, the death of a beautiful, beloved woman as the best theme and the prevalence of suggesting over stating. On the other hand, Machado did not publish essays to go with his fiction and, thus, explain his literary project and discuss what a short story should look like. The only essays he did publish, “Instinto de Nacionalidade” [Instinct of Nationality] and “O Papel do Crítico” [The Role of the Critic], discuss a general literary project and dogmatically tell critics what to do. Therefore, to have a picture of Machado’s views regarding the short story as a genre, one must turn to his stories, that is, to his fiction to infer his theories. If Poe both philosophized and wrote many short stories during his brief career, Machado dedicated nearly fifty years of his life to writing hundreds of short stories. However, being extremely self-critical, the Brazilian writer would systematically discard most of them and select just a
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few to be published in book format. Here one can see the same method of judging what to publish, what to say, what to unveil, although Poe’s financial problems many times would lead him to write and publish some tales of “inferior quality and precision”, as critics tend to point out. Thus, if both authors carefully sought what to say and when within their literary projects, while Poe had to surrender to the market’s pressure, Machado profited from the comfort of choosing what to publish and when. An overview of Poe’s short stories allows for the perception of some topoi consciously crafted by the author: an atmosphere of dreams, as in “Island of the Fay”, or nightmares, as in “The Pit and the Pendulum”, the suspension from reality, as in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the isolation of characters and narrators within a world of insanity and/or unreality, as in “The Oval Portrait”, the death of the beautiful, beloved woman, as in “Berenice”, “Ligeia” or “Morella” who, nevertheless, comes back to take revenge and haunt the narrator, the figure of the double or Doppelgänger, as in “William Wilson”, the macabre, the gothic, death and perversity for its own sake, as in “Black Cat” or “The Cask of Amontillado”; in sum, in practically all stories, there is a prevailing ambiance of final annihilation and decay, fragmentation and total destruction. Even in his comic stories, such as “Hop Frog” or “Never Bet the Devil your Head”, one can notice irony and an acid sense of humor portraying perversity, destruction and annihilation. Therefore, Poe’s short
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stories seem deeply rooted in his general literary project, one of unveiling the human soul and showing man’s inescapable fate. In a world where certainties are long gone, where massification and alienation prevail – theme of “The Man of the Crowd”- , is there a place for man? Is there safety? Poe does not seem to believe so. What about Machado de Assis’ short stories? Do they bear any resemblance to Poe’s? The Brazilian author’s works have been generally classified as belonging to three different phases. The first one shows stories which tend to resort to some of the same ingredients Poe used: the fantastic, insanity, death, the Doppelgänger. In “Seus Olhos” [Her eyes], the main character’s extreme jealousy leads him to snatching his wife’s eyes with an iron bar and letting her bleed to death (although for different reasons, the character of “Berenice” does the same with his cousin’s teeth). In “O Esqueleto” [The Skeleton] the main character can not bear his first wife’s death and goes insane, keeping her skeleton at home and making his new wife and visitors sit at the table with it (in Poe’s “The Oblong Box”, the character can not stand his wife’s death and keeps the body with him inside a coffin; whilst trying to travel by ship with it, there is a shipwreck and the character decides to drown with it rather than save himself). Towards the second phase of his production, Machado still resorts to Poe, but with a conscious project of deformation and adaptation to his own literary project. In one of his most reputable short stories, “O Espelho”
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[The Mirror], the main character is a low-middle class man portrayed as having two souls, an inner one and an outer one, the latter represented by his uniform and military patent 5: when everyone goes away and he is left alone at an isolated piece of land, without anyone else to continue praising his uniform –his outer soul - , he undergoes deep depression, abandons his uniform, quits taking a shower and shaving, and can not look at himself on the mirror anymore; after some days of despair, anguish and isolation, he suddenly finds the cure for his malaise by simply going back to wearing his uniform all the time and looking at it on the mirror, thus realizing his selfesteem depended on his appearance. This story tends to be read as an example of the myth of the Doppelgänger, which reminds us of “William Wilson”. However, if in Poe’s story the death of the other causes the destruction of the one, in Machado’s story, irony and sense of humor prevail and there is a happy end to it: the character recovers from depression and his reputation remains untouched, as if the period when no one praised him and his outer soul was neglected had been just a nightmare, now completely forgotten. In another short story of the same period, perhaps Machado’s longest and most acclaimed one, “O Alienista” [The Alienist], the main character is a pseudo-psychiatrist who controls his wife as a “slaveholder”
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In those days, low middle-class citizens were only able to ascend in society through the engagement in the military. This was usually regarded as a symbol of success and enrichment.
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and decides to carry out an experiment in a small town to study insanity. He convinces politicians and the clergy6 to let him open up an asylum and start taking in everyone he considers mad: those who argue with others, those who disagree with his views, those who protest, those who respect women, and so forth. After some time, the asylum is packed with people and he realizes his experiment needs a second phase. He releases his patients and takes in all those who would be considered normal. In the end, aiming at studying insanity and patterns of normality, he realizes he must be the one crazy person in town and retreats to his asylum, despite protests from all. In a deep sense of black humor embedded in irony and critical views regarding society, the clergy, politics and science, Machado ends up criticizing the pillars of his own days, in a moment when science and certainty prevail with the strong influence from Positivism. Sources of this short story may be traced in Poe’s “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, a tale in which the insane replace the sane during a rebellion in an asylum; the narrator, however, seems totally blind and incapable of realizing what is actually going on at the place. If Poe’s story is full of funny ingredients and plain sense of humor, Machado’s story bears direct social and political criticism and a strong sense of bleakness.
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Since colonial times until the end of the Empire, Brazilian society and politics was controlled by aristocracy and the clergy.
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The third phase of Machado’s production brings about his novels D. Casmurro7[Dom Casmurro: A Novel], Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas [The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas’], Quincas Borba and Esaú e Jacob [Esau and Jacob]. Despite belonging to another literary genre, such novels may be seen as a compilation of series of short stories juxtaposed in a rather fragmentary way (similarly to what happens to Poe’s fragments from Marginalia, A Chapter of Suggestions, Fifty Suggestions and Marginal Notes). Also, one can notice the presence of elements from his previous phases: the Doppelgänger (Isaac and Jacob are doubles like Roderick and Madeleine Usher or both William Wilsons), perversity and revenge for their own sake (like in “The Cask of Amontillado”’s Montresor and Fortunato relationship, Rubião is an ingenious character easily misled into believing those who only wanted to take advantage of him) and deep uncertainty concerning reality and imagination (like in most of Poe’s stories, Bentinho, D.Casmurro’s main character, is taken aback and does not know whether his suspicion is true, or rather, the results of his pure imagination and fancy). If Poe’s stories make up a well-designed, deeply-thought-of project and abide by it without exceptions, as if his project were timeless,
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“Casmurro” in Portuguese means grumpy – the main character is always depressed,
melancholic, complaining about life and strongly suspicious of his wife’s betraying him with his best friend. Although truth is never revealed, the reader is led to believe Capitu, the wife, is unfaithful through the character’s interpretation of her attitudes and sly eyes.
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suspended from reality and progress or change, Machado’s works undergo constant modification and development. If, in the beginning of his career, he was more closely linked with Poe’s concepts and theories, the Brazilian author gradually re-created, remodeled and adapted them to his own project and literary needs. If Poe sought in his writings a way of denouncing man’s alienation and the inescapable destruction of mankind, Machado seems to have had another mission in mind: to openly criticize his times, yet not isolating himself and his characters from reality. If Poe’s stories and poems depict an atmosphere of isolation, self-enclosure, unreality, suspension of time and space, destruction and death, such an atmosphere was soon abandoned by Machado, who portrayed his characters and conceived his stories in an open-air space: the streets of Rio de Janeiro during Brazil’s Second Empire. If one can not really know when Poe’s stories take place due to their gothic ambiance, one easily recognizes the petty situations, the well-known places and the ordinary citizens of Rio de Janeiro during his times. Therefore, so as to answer the initial question posed in this article, one has to resort to the word Cosmopolitan. Machado was a man of his times, a cosmopolitan who denounced the incongruities of his society, who denounced cosmopolitanism in a
moment of fragmentation and
massification brought about by modernity. Poe was a cosmopolitan who refused to be one, thus preferring to be by himself. In consequence, how
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did Machado read Poe? Perhaps the answer is: as an isolated man, as a writer whose theories he could adapt, whose gallery of characters and plots he could resort to if necessary for his own literary project, but who could regarded as a source rather than as a blind influence.
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Works Cited
Assis, Machado de. Obras Completas. São Paulo : W. M. Jackson, 1955. Print. Bellei, Sergio L. P. Nacionalidade e Literatura: os caminhos da alteridade. Florianópolis: EDUFSC, 1992. Print. Cunha, Patricia. L.F. “A Opção pelo Conto: confluência e alteridade em Machado de Assis e Edgar A. Poe”. Diss: Universidade de São Paulo, 1995. Print. ----------------. Machado de Assis, um escritor na capital dos trópicos. Porto Alegre: IEL/ Editora Unisinos, 1998. Print. Daghlian, Carlos. “A Recepção De Poe Na Literatura Brasileira”. Fragmentos, 17.2 (1999): 7-14. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe; Volumes II-III Tales and Sketches. Ed. Thomas-Ollive Mabbott. 1978. University of Southern Illinois, 2000. Print.
