Machado de Assis: written pages and publishing documents and roles

• Grant number: 20/03648-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: August 01, 2020 - February 29, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Brazilian Literature
• Principal Investigator: Lucia Granja
• Grantee: Lucia Granja
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project is a development of issues that have arisen during a previous FAPESP project, the Thematic Project "The transatlantic circulation of printed matter: the globalization of culture in the 19th century", process 11/07342-9, which extended from September 2011 to August 2016. The research problem to be answered now is based on the certainty that cultural objects circulated in Brazil without time lag and with the same European marketing rules and is the following: how did a writer (Machado de Assis), who was aware of the practices and international actions related to publishing practices, use this knowledge in practice and artistically to build his literary reputation? In this project, this is studied from the mapping and analysis of the relationships between this artist/intellectual and his publishers (especially the Garniers, but not exclusively), as well as the knowledge and mastery that Machado de Assis himself had about the Brazilian publishing world and international publishing practices. If the strategies and actions of the writer with the Brazilian intellectual and publishing production gave him a major position in the national canon, the same knowledge was not helpful to the internationalization of his literature, while he was still alive. As broad objectives, this project intends, from the study of the confluence between a writer, his editorial activity and his publishing relations, to contribute to the clarification of the literary project and the processes of creation of Machado de Assis' literary reputation and the consecration. It is also proposed to review certain ideas by critics and biographers regarding Machado's work (relativizing the idea that unanimity is purely due to "genius"), which will be done through the recovery of documents and traces of the editorial and publishing processes inscribed in the materiality of the writer's texts and supports. (AU)