Brás Cubas e o auto-retrato d além-túmulo

Abstract

This work intends to examine how Machado de Assis achieved, through the writing of the novel Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, the discussion of not only this literary genre, but also the autobiographical discourse and fiction in itself. Therefore, our objective was to analyze the book inside the book, the one written by Brás Cubas, and demonstrate that, through the creation of this artifice, the writer has brought to the reader a relevant discussion without, however, presenting that like a thesis. At first, we study mainly the concepts of autobiography, autobiographical novel, memoirs and fiction, using fundamentally the theories developed by Philippe Lejeune. We also introduce a brief historical panorama of the subject, using for that, essentially, an essay by Luiz Costa Lima concerning the origins and the different stages that the autobiographical genre has passed through. In sequence, we explore in detail the notions of portrait and self-portrait, in painting and in literature, through both a historical and a conceptual angle, gathering art historians, philosophers and literary critics, in the pursue of a multidisciplinary comprehension of the subject. Finally, we dedicate ourselves to the study of Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, resuming the previously examined concepts, and searching for examples in the text that approximate the book written by the dead author both to the autobiography and to the self-portrait