Confluences of the newspaper and the editing with the literature: Machado de Assis collaboration in O Cruzeiro

Abstract

This project proposes a critical study about Machado de Assis' collaboration in the Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Cruzeiro, during the year 1878. The final product of the research would be a publication of a book, basically divides into two parts: editing of texts extracted from the periodical and a sizeable introductory essay. Based on methodological procedures of textual criticism, especially of the New Philology, the research consists of a first volume with a reliable reproduction of Machado de Assis' corpus, constituted by 25 texts (14 chronicles, 2 essays of literary criticism and 9 texts of fictional creation). The second volume would present a judicious selection of the section "Folhetim do Cruzeiro", with texts written by Machado de Assis' partners in the periodical. In editing this group of texts one contributes fundamentally to the comprehension of Machado de Assis' intellectual activity in so far as it permits to identify the traces of his singular inscription in collective editorial projects and the creative results deriving from the appropriation of the group of discourses, codes and signs that form the culture of his time. The dominant stylistic of the material to be edited is the humor and the formal experimentation. Thus, in the critical essay, we intend to examine the relations of these texts with O Cruzeiro, trying to demonstrate that the periodical is stated as mediator and support, for excellence, of the experimental exercises that resulted in the transformation of Machado de Assis' creative practice. Therefore, on the whole, the proposed book would offer a clear perspective of an important moment in the transformations of Machado de Assis' narrative as since it condenses several elements. The book condenses the experimentation, the learning and the mastery of the humorous technique. It also condenses the resources of the parody, the generic solutions and innovative formal procedures within the scope of Brazilian Literature.