Machado de Assis, authorship and the fantastic mode: a study of the machadian fantastic

Abstract

This research project aims to propose a complete selection of the fantastic tales written by Machado de Assis and to study them. Linked to APR-FAPESP project 03648-5, "Machado de Assis: written pages and editorial roles", the goal is to achieve a satisfactory understanding of the material aspects of this writer's intellectual trajectory, specifically Machado's knowledge and aesthetic use of the notion of the "fantastic". Starting from a contemporary expansion of the concept of the "fantastic", seen as a "narrative mode" (a discourse that persists as expressiveness in different historical periods and is formed by strategies for organizing the narrative), all the short stories that use this set of resources will be selected. Next, some of the author's fantastic tales will be analyzed in order to understand how the "mode" works in these texts and, consequently, the narrative organization of this type of machadian fiction. The objective is not only to broaden the definitions of fantastic literature, but also to identify, in the writer's texts, the authorial mark that demonstrates how he manipulated the fantastic mode within his literary project.