Renata Philippov

Renata PhilippovProfessor of English Language and LiteraturesFederal University of Sao Paulo- Brazil

Edgar Allan Poe and Machado de Assis: how

did

Machado read Poe?

This paper aims at addressing possible

connections between Edgar Allan Poe’s and Machado

de Assis’ works and literary projects. It is part

of a much larger post-doctoral study whose scope

has to do with Poe’s reception in Brazil during

the second half of the 19th century, a reception

which probably occurred through the mediation of

French authors such as Charles Baudelaire and

Stéphane Mallarmé.

Brazil was then still an Empire closely linked

to Portugal, struggling to attain its total

political, economic and cultural independence from

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its colonizer. If the Independence of the country

had been signed in 1822, after a period of three

hundred years of colonization, exploration and

fierce control from Portugal, in the second half

of the century the country still had strong bonds

tying it to the once “mother land” and to the

European continent. In fact, the Emperor, Peter

the Second, belonged to the Portuguese royal

family, Brazilian trade largely depended upon

Portugal and its economic partners, such as

England, culture based itself on European models,

especially the French one1.; in short, Brazil still

had to attain full independence and forge its own

models for the economy, politics and culture.

In terms of literature, a reading public was

being formed. Those who did not read French had

access to literary pieces through poetry and

1 French was the prevailing foreign language of the elite.

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novels published in installments in local

newspapers and periodicals that, many times,

simply translated works from French and English

authors. Those who had a higher educational level

and belonged to higher social brackets finished

their studies in Europe, for universities in

Brazil simply did not exist2. Books from acclaimed

European novelists, such as Victor Hugo, François-

René de Chateaubriand and Charles Dickens, were

imported, but only a few had full access to them

and were able to understand foreign languages,

especially French. There was, therefore, a market

for translations and a reading public eager to get

in contact with novels and poetry originally

published in Europe.

2 The first colleges had barely opened and catered for Law,Medical School and Engineering. The first university in Brazil would only open in the 1930´s in the State of Sao Paulo – the University of Sao Paulo.

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Within this context of close contact with

European models, Brazilian literature still

resorted to them for themes, characters and plots.

Famous writers such as José de Alencar turned to

Chateaubriand and other French romantic writers to

create his own literature. If Portuguese models

began to be set aside, other European models

replaced them in the reading public’s taste. 3

Brazil would have to wait for Machado de Assis

in the second half of the 19th century to see the

onset of its full literary independence from

Europe. Nowadays regarded as the most influential

Brazilian writer of all times, with translations

into many languages and academic studies dedicated

to his works at universities all over the world,

Machado was then a beginning author trying to

reach fame and pay his bills. Born into an3 Reputable Brazilian novelists and poets defended a local literary project in which Portuguese models should be neglected so as to guarantee some cultural and literary independence from the motherland.

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extremely poor family, son of an illiterate

clothes-washer, stemming from Rio de Janeiro’s

slums, a free mulatto when slavery still existed

in the country, Machado de Assis was a self-taught

man who made his way through literature and

journalism. Against all adversities posed to

someone from his background, Machado slowly gained

reputation, recognition and knowledge: he taught

himself how to read in English and French and

helped found the Brazilian Academy of Letters,

something totally unforeseen in a society still

deeply rooted in aristocratic ideals4 and

prejudice.

Possessing a strong sense of criticism against

the literary values and models of his times,

Machado defended the creation of a Brazilian model

for literature, a project he constantly referred4 Brazil was then in a period called Second Empire. Slavery would only be totally abolished in 1888, and the Republic would be signed in 1889.

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to and deeply discussed in a famous essay called

“Instinto de Nacionalidade” [Instinct of

Nationality]. Specifically criticizing romantic

paradigms regarding the supremacy of love,

idealism, nature, freedom of thought, Machado

believed literature should be used to portray and

criticize injustice and society. However, he was

neither a Realist nor a Naturalist, for many of

his writings mix detailed descriptions of his

milieu and times with fantastic elements, irony,

humor and wit. In this sense, Edgar Allan Poe and

Machado de Assis converge in many aspects.

How did Machado, isolated in Rio de Janeiro,

the capital of the Empire, yet a small provincial

city, get in touch with Edgar Allan Poe’s works?

How relevant would those be for Machado’s literary

project of creating a National literature,

independent from European patterns? As mentioned

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before, famous European writers were read among

those cultured Brazilians with access to imported

books and translations published in local

newspapers. Therefore, one such European author

was Charles Baudelaire, whose translations of

Poe’s works into French reached Brazil and Machado

de Assis, more specifically. However, Machado also

read in English and published a translation of

“The Raven” into Portuguese, giving it a different

touch from the original, with diverse meter and

prose-like style, a deliberate decision so as to

approach the Portuguese metric style and maintain

a certain literary independence with regards to

the original. In fact, Machado’s version is

considered to be the first, if not one of the

best, translations ever made of Poe’s poem.

This was not the only occasion, though, when

Poe’s works occupied Machado’s thoughts. Critics

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such as Cunha (1995), Bellei (1992) and Daghlian

(1999), among many others, see many points in

common between both authors.

Both developed a well-wrought literary project

and conceived all their works so as to fit within

such project. Both sought recognition through

their literary and journalistic work, although it

is well-known that Poe underwent ups and downs in

his career, being sometimes highly praised and

sometimes totally neglected and despised, unlike

Machado, who soon was regarded with admiration.

Both were severe critics of their times and

contemporaries. Both dedicated much time to

publishing in newspapers and periodicals,

something quite common in Brazil, the US and

Europe at the time. Both elected a literary genre

as the perfect environment for their philosophical

and literary projects: the short story. Both

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shared some themes, atmosphere of gloom and awe,

character development, wit and an acid sense of

humor.

If Poe is considered the master of the short

story as a genre in 19th century American

literature, although not a unanimity in his canon,

the same may be said of Machado de Assis. If Poe

implemented his own way of writing short stories,

adapting a genre he did not create, but, at the

same time, creating sub-genres such as the

detective story, the same may be said of Machado.

Therefore, the short story seems to be a very

strong bond linking both writers, who considered

it to be the “genre par excellence” to express

content from the human soul and discuss the role

of man in a developing fast-paced society. In

fact, Poe wrote essays such as “The Poetic

Principle”, “Philosophy of Composition” and many

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fragments from Marginalia, A Chapter of Suggestions, Fifty

Suggestions and Marginal Thoughts to discuss some of

the characteristics of a short story according to

his literary project: the importance of brevity,

the theory of the preconceived effect, the death

of a beautiful, beloved woman as the best theme

and the prevalence of suggesting over stating. On

the other hand, Machado did not publish essays to

go with his fiction and, thus, explain his

literary project and discuss what a short story

should look like. The only essays he did publish,

“Instinto de Nacionalidade” [Instinct of

Nationality] and “O Papel do Crítico” [The Role of

the Critic], discuss a general literary project

and dogmatically tell critics what to do.

Therefore, to have a picture of Machado’s views

regarding the short story as a genre, one must

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turn to his stories, that is, to his fiction to

infer his theories.

If Poe both philosophized and wrote many short

stories during his brief career, Machado dedicated

nearly fifty years of his life to writing hundreds

of short stories. However, being extremely self-

critical, the Brazilian writer would

systematically discard most of them and select

just a few to be published in book format. Here

one can see the same method of judging what to

publish, what to say, what to unveil, although

Poe’s financial problems many times would lead him

to write and publish some tales of “inferior

quality and precision”, as critics tend to point

out. Thus, if both authors carefully sought what

to say and when within their literary projects,

while Poe had to surrender to the market’s

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pressure, Machado profited from the comfort of

choosing what to publish and when.

An overview of Poe’s short stories allows for

the perception of some topoi consciously crafted

by the author: an atmosphere of dreams, as in

“Island of the Fay”, or nightmares, as in “The Pit

and the Pendulum”, the suspension from reality, as

in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the isolation

of characters and narrators within a world of

insanity and/or unreality, as in “The Oval

Portrait”, the death of the beautiful, beloved

woman, as in “Berenice”, “Ligeia” or “Morella”

who, nevertheless, comes back to take revenge and

haunt the narrator, the figure of the double or

Doppelgänger, as in “William Wilson”, the macabre,

the gothic, death and perversity for its own sake,

as in “Black Cat” or “The Cask of Amontillado”; in

sum, in practically all stories, there is a

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prevailing ambiance of final annihilation and

decay, fragmentation and total destruction. Even

in his comic stories, such as “Hop Frog” or “Never

Bet the Devil your Head”, one can notice irony and

an acid sense of humor portraying perversity,

destruction and annihilation. Therefore, Poe’s

short stories seem deeply rooted in his general

literary project, one of unveiling the human soul

and showing man’s inescapable fate. In a world

where certainties are long gone, where

massification and alienation prevail –

theme of “The Man of the Crowd”- , is there a

place for man? Is there safety? Poe does not seem

to believe so.

What about Machado de Assis’ short stories? Do

they bear any resemblance to Poe’s? The Brazilian

author’s works have been generally classified as

belonging to three different phases. The first one

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shows stories which tend to resort to some of the

same ingredients Poe used: the fantastic,

insanity, death, the Doppelgänger. In “Seus Olhos”

[Her eyes], the main character’s extreme jealousy

leads him to snatching his wife’s eyes with an

iron bar and letting her bleed to death (although

for different reasons, the character of “Berenice”

does the same with his cousin’s teeth). In “O

Esqueleto” [The Skeleton] the main character can

not bear his first wife’s death and goes insane,

keeping her skeleton at home and making his new

wife and visitors sit at the table with it (in

Poe’s “The Oblong Box”, the character can not

stand his wife’s death and keeps the body with him

inside a coffin; whilst trying to travel by ship

with it, there is a shipwreck and the character

decides to drown with it rather than save

himself).

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Towards the second phase of his production,

Machado still resorts to Poe, but with a conscious

project of deformation and adaptation to his own

literary project. In one of his most reputable

short stories, “O Espelho” [The Mirror], the main

character is a low-middle class man portrayed as

having two souls, an inner one and an outer one,

the latter represented by his uniform and military

patent5: when everyone goes away and he is left

alone at an isolated piece of land, without anyone

else to continue praising his uniform –his outer

soul - , he undergoes deep depression, abandons

his uniform, quits taking a shower and shaving,

and can not look at himself on the mirror anymore;

after some days of despair, anguish and isolation,

he suddenly finds the cure for his malaise by

simply going back to wearing his uniform all the5 In those days, low middle-class citizens were only able to ascend in society through the engagement in the military. This was usually regarded as a symbol of success and enrichment.

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time and looking at it on the mirror, thus

realizing his self-esteem depended on his

appearance. This story tends to be read as an

example of the myth of the Doppelgänger, which

reminds us of “William Wilson”. However, if in

Poe’s story the death of the other causes the

destruction of the one, in Machado’s story, irony

and sense of humor prevail and there is a happy

end to it: the character recovers from depression

and his reputation remains untouched, as if the

period when no one praised him and his outer soul

was neglected had been just a nightmare, now

completely forgotten.

In another short story of the same period,

perhaps Machado’s longest and most acclaimed one,

“O Alienista” [The Alienist], the main character

is a pseudo-psychiatrist who controls his wife as

a “slaveholder” and decides to carry out an

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experiment in a small town to study insanity. He

convinces politicians and the clergy6 to let him

open up an asylum and start taking in everyone he

considers mad: those who argue with others, those

who disagree with his views, those who protest,

those who respect women, and so forth. After some

time, the asylum is packed with people and he

realizes his experiment needs a second phase. He

releases his patients and takes in all those who

would be considered normal. In the end, aiming at

studying insanity and patterns of normality, he

realizes he must be the one crazy person in town

and retreats to his asylum, despite protests from

all. In a deep sense of black humor embedded in

irony and critical views regarding society, the

clergy, politics and science, Machado ends up

criticizing the pillars of his own days, in a

6 Since colonial times until the end of the Empire, Brazilian society and politics was controlled by aristocracy and the clergy.

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moment when science and certainty prevail with the

strong influence from Positivism. Sources of this

short story may be traced in Poe’s “The System of

Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, a tale in which

the insane replace the sane during a rebellion in

an asylum; the narrator, however, seems totally

blind and incapable of realizing what is actually

going on at the place. If Poe’s story is full of

funny ingredients and plain sense of humor,

Machado’s story bears direct social and political

criticism and a strong sense of bleakness.

The third phase of Machado’s production brings

about his novels D. Casmurro7[Dom Casmurro: A Novel],

Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas [The Posthumous Memoirs

of Brás Cubas’], Quincas Borba and Esaú e Jacob [Esau

7 “Casmurro” in Portuguese means grumpy – the main characteris always depressed, melancholic, complaining about life and strongly suspicious of his wife’s betraying him with his best friend. Although truth is never revealed, the reader is led to believe Capitu, the wife, is unfaithful through the character’s interpretation of her attitudes andsly eyes.

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and Jacob]. Despite belonging to another literary

genre, such novels may be seen as a compilation of

series of short stories juxtaposed in a rather

fragmentary way (similarly to what happens to

Poe’s fragments from Marginalia, A Chapter of Suggestions,

Fifty Suggestions and Marginal Notes). Also, one can

notice the presence of elements from his previous

phases: the Doppelgänger (Isaac and Jacob are

doubles like Roderick and Madeleine Usher or both

William Wilsons), perversity and revenge for their

own sake (like in “The Cask of Amontillado”’s

Montresor and Fortunato relationship, Rubião is an

ingenious character easily misled into believing

those who only wanted to take advantage of him)

and deep uncertainty concerning reality and

imagination (like in most of Poe’s stories,

Bentinho, D.Casmurro’s main character, is taken

aback and does not know whether his suspicion is

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true, or rather, the results of his pure

imagination and fancy).

If Poe’s stories make up a well-designed,

deeply-thought-of project and abide by it without

exceptions, as if his project were timeless,

suspended from reality and progress or change,

Machado’s works undergo constant modification and

development. If, in the beginning of his career,

he was more closely linked with Poe’s concepts and

theories, the Brazilian author gradually re-

created, remodeled and adapted them to his own

project and literary needs. If Poe sought in his

writings a way of denouncing man’s alienation and

the inescapable destruction of mankind, Machado

seems to have had another mission in mind: to

openly criticize his times, yet not isolating

himself and his characters from reality. If Poe’s

stories and poems depict an atmosphere of

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isolation, self-enclosure, unreality, suspension

of time and space, destruction and death, such an

atmosphere was soon abandoned by Machado, who

portrayed his characters and conceived his stories

in an open-air space: the streets of Rio de

Janeiro during Brazil’s Second Empire. If one can

not really know when Poe’s stories take place due

to their gothic ambiance, one easily recognizes

the petty situations, the well-known places and

the ordinary citizens of Rio de Janeiro during his

times.

Therefore, so as to answer the initial

question posed in this article, one has to resort

to the word Cosmopolitan. Machado was a man of his

times, a cosmopolitan who denounced the

incongruities of his society, who denounced

cosmopolitanism in a moment of fragmentation and

massification brought about by modernity. Poe was

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a cosmopolitan who refused to be one, thus

preferring to be by himself. In consequence, how

did Machado read Poe? Perhaps the answer is: as an

isolated man, as a writer whose theories he could

adapt, whose gallery of characters and plots he

could resort to if necessary for his own literary

project, but who could regarded as a source rather

than as a blind influence.

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Works Cited

Assis, Machado de. Obras Completas. São Paulo : W.

M. Jackson, 1955.

Print.

Bellei, Sergio L. P. Nacionalidade e Literatura: os

caminhos da alteridade. Florianópolis: EDUFSC,

1992. Print.

Cunha, Patricia. L.F. “A Opção pelo Conto:

confluência e alteridade em

Machado de Assis e Edgar A. Poe”. Diss:

Universidade de

São Paulo, 1995. Print.

----------------. Machado de Assis, um escritor na capital

dos trópicos. Porto

Alegre: IEL/ Editora Unisinos, 1998.

Print.

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Daghlian, Carlos. “A Recepção De Poe Na Literatura

Brasileira”.

Fragmentos, 17.2 (1999): 7-14. Print.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe;

Volumes II-III Tales and Sketches. Ed. Thomas-Ollive

Mabbott.

1978. University of Southern Illinois, 2000.

Print.

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