The inner self in abyss: a study on free indirect speech and form crisis in Quincas Borba

• Grant number: 14/09953-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2014
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Brazilian Literature
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Hélio de Seixas Guimarães
• Grantee: Tiago Seminatti
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project consists of a critical study about Machado de Assis's Quincas Borba, supporting the main hypothesis that the protagonist's psychic crisis corresponds to the complexity of the novel's form. In this novel, a versatile narrator portrays a split character whose trajectory culminates in madness, and death. Thus, a dialogue may be established between the main character's intrinsic complexity and the concern with form. Novel form was a great concern for writers of works from the 18th century until the beginning of the 20th century, as stated in Antonio Candido's A personagem do romance. According to Candido, writers increased the feeling of difficulty surrounding fictional beings. In Brazil's literary scene, Machado de Assis was in search of fictional modalities to suit his artistic profile, having produced a disquieting work that defied the schemes set out by Romanticism and Naturalism. Furthermore, the crisis of the character and the questioning of the novel's form can be associated with the compositional crisis faced by the author during the writing process of Quincas Borba, which was interrupted twice. We aim to consider how Rubião's consciousness fragmentation is carried out by the narrator, and to understand the meaning of the rapport established among this form of fragmentation and other elements in the novel. This research will, therefore, analyse the means of portraying a character in the midst of psychic disintegration in a work whose very writing process was especially problematic. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

SEMINATTI, Tiago. The inner self in abyss: a study on free indirect speech and form crisis in Quincas Borba. 2016. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.