Machado de Assis (Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis) is one of the greatest writers of the Portuguese language of all times. Considered the father of Brazilian realism, whose starting point is his novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas(1881), the author is of fundamental importance in the constitution of Brazilian literature.
Biography
He was born on June 21, 1839, in Morro do Livramento, a marginalized region of Rio de Janeiro. Poor, descendant of slaves, stuttering and epileptic, he left home at age 16, when he started working in newspapers in the capital of Rio de Janeiro as an apprentice typographer.
At work, he met Manuel Antônio de Almeida, author of Memoirs of a militia sergeant. This professional partnership was of great influence for Machado who, since then, has continued to work for newspapers in various ways, where he had the opportunity to write chronicles, which began in the form of reviews of the debates in the Senate and, later, on the customs of the at the time, which generated, over a 40-year career, more than 600 texts about the Rio society of the century XIX.
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In 1897, Machado founded the Brazilian Academy of Letters, where he held the post of president for 10 years. In addition to his literary career, Machado de Assis also held several public positions, becoming a prominent figure of his time.
Carolina, the great love
Carolina Augusta Xavier de Novais, wife of Machado de Assis.
In 1866, he arrived in Rio de Janeiro Carolina Augusta Xavier de Novais, sister of the Portuguese poet Faustino Xavier de Novais, a great friend of Machado. The two met and became close until, three years later, on November 12, 1869, they were married. The couple remained in love – as shown in the couple's correspondence – and united for 35 years until, in 1904, Carolina died. Machado, at the time, went into a deep depression. The author, missing his wife, wrote one of his most famous poems:
Carolina
Dear! At the foot of the last bed,
where do you rest from this long life,
here I come and come, poor dear,
bring you the heart of a companion.
That true affection pulses
that, despite all the human reads,
made our existence desirable
and in a corner he put a whole world...
I bring you flowers - ripped out scraps
from the land that saw us pass united
and now dead leave us and separated;
that I, if I have, in my badly injured eyes,
formulated life thoughts,
they are thoughts gone and lived.
Death
Already old and taken by depression, Machado de Assis died on September 29, 1908, at 69 years of age. His death was widely lamented by several Brazilian artists and intellectuals, including jurist Rui Barbosa, who spoke at the author's wake, representing the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
Construction
Brás Cubas, one of the main characters of Machado de Assis, stated at the end of his Posthumous Memoirs:
“I had no children, I did not transmit to any creature the legacy of our misery.”
Likewise, the author also had no children. However, Machado left, as a legacy, a work of incalculable value. Some of his main publications were:
Resurrection (1872)
Midnight Stories (1873)
The Hand and the Glove (1874)
Iaiá Garcia (1878)
Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881)
Single Papers (1882)
The Alienist (1882)
Quincas Borba (1891)
Dom Casmurro (1899)
Esau and Jacob (1904);
Memorial de Aires (1908)
Read too: Dom Casmurro's Controversies: Did Capitu Betray Bentinho?
Features
To learn more about the outstanding characteristics of Machado de Assis' style, we recommend reading this text: Machado de Assis - Trajectory, Characteristics and Works.
Summary
On June 21, 1839, Machado de Assis was born.
In 1881 he published The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, the starting point of Brazilian realism.
In 1866, he met Carolina Augusta Xavier de Novais, whom he would marry three years later.
In 1897, he founded the Academia Brasileira de Letras.
In 1904, Carolina died after 35 years of marriage to the author.
In 1908, he died of depression at the age of 69.
By M. Fernando Marinho
