Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, better known as Machado de Assis is considered one of the greatest writers of Brazilian literature, and it is no wonder, he created several works of great importance for the cultural history of literature. Let's go into his life trajectory a little and get to know the main works that marked and still mark an epoch today.
See too: Manuel Bandeira
Talking about Machado de Assis is talking about a great genius writer who created several literary works with serious nuances of the current society and at the same time with humorous tones. Machado was born in Rio de Janeiro, in 1839, and died in 1908, at the age of 69. Today, it completes 180 years of his great existence.
Machado de Assis grew up on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, more specifically in the so-called Morro do Livramento, from a humble family, grandson of slaves, he crossed barriers and difficulties along the way to achieve his position as a public servant and devote faithfully to their studies, in addition to their love of books, they had a great passion for Carolina, his wife, who lived until the end of her life. days.
In addition to Public Employee Machado de Assis also worked in newspapers, his great passion and dedication has always been books, a man with refined intelligence and with a great load of knowledge of great importance for his literary creation, before that, he wrote her first poem called “Ela”, the poem was written through the collaboration of Machado as the Journal, called at the time Jornal Groundhog.
However, Machado de Assis began writing his works very early, some events during his life shook this passion, such as the death of his mother and consequently, some time later he was raised by his godmother, his stepmother was also considered to be of great help in his trajectory, as his father some time later married again.
Nowadays, Machado de Assis is president of the ABL (Brazilian Academy of Letters) for life. In 1896, he personally attended the first session of the Academy's Foundation and is elected president at the inauguration of the same. This shows how much Machado was and is a great figure in Brazilian literature.
Machado de Assis can be considered a polygraph, as he immersed himself in several literary genres, such as romance, theatre, newspaper articles, poetry, chronicles, and it was in the chronicles of romance and short stories that the most highlighted. In theater, called Teatro de Machado de Assis, he wrote two great comedies, Protocol and Caminho da Porta.
Initially, Machado began to produce poetry and plays, and from that he began to build romantic works that we call 1 romantic phase, that is, a literary genre. Machado de Assis had a great reference in his works from the writer Jose Alencar.
The first book in the romantic phase was Resurrection of 1872, a book considered without major melancholy or even without major sentimental excesses. A Mão ea Luva, second novel by the writer, published in 1874, Helena, from 1876, Helena was a book that marked the break with certain standards demanded and placed by the present society of the time, that is, the bourgeoisie, containing critics and great ironies. And finally, Iaiá Garcia, the last book of the first romantic phase, published in 1878.
In the Realism phase, Machado de Assis looks around himself and society and questions the main issues of the time. romantic production, that is, it leaves romantic idealism and looks at a society with great social problems, questioning the church, marriage, the famous traditional family Brazilian.
The first book that definitively marked Realism in Brazil was Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, from 1881, Quincas Borbas, 1891, Dom Casmurro, 1899, Esaú e Jacó, 1904, and in the year of his death he published Memorial de Aires, by 1908.
Given all this realistic and even pessimistic thinking by Machado de Assis, it was widely criticized by contemporaries of the time.
With all this very extensive work, in January 1904, he continued with his wife Carolina Augusta, in the city of Freiburg, where she died of a serious illness. Machado was married to Carolina for almost 35 years, they had no children. The most exciting thing about Machado's entire trajectory is that with the death of his wife, he dedicated the sonnet “A Carolina” to his wife.
"Darling, at the foot of the last bed
Where do you rest from this long life,
Here I come and I'm poor dear,
Bring you the heart of the companion.
That true affection pulses
That, despite all the human reads,
made our existence cherished
And in a corner he put a whole world.
I bring you flowers, - ripped up remains
From the land that saw us pass united
And now dead leaves us and separated.
That I, if I have bad eyes
Life thoughts formulated,
They are thoughts gone and lived.”
On September 29, Machado de Assis died, in Rio de Janeiro, in his hometown, is buried together in the tomb of his wife Carolina, putting an end and restart to the great Machado legacy of Assisi.
Unfortunately, time is still very indifferent with the great literatures already created over time, it is extremely important to exercise and fully enable access to these books, books that bring great teachings and especially lessons for a lifetime, build this in everyday life and in the classroom setting. class is of great importance, reading, learning together with the students, removing the big “excuse” that literary books are difficult to read and understanding. It is necessary to point out that literary books are important and need to have more presence in teaching and in the trajectory of books that must be read.
Concluding all the information mentioned, here is a short sentence by Machado de Assis, who aspires to time:
“Time is an invisible fabric on which everything can be embroidered, a flower, a bird, a lady, a castle, a tomb. Also if you embroider nothing. Nothing on top of invisible is the most subtle work in the world, and by chance.”
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