Machado de Assis and Borges: Two Classicists in Full Modernity

Abstract

We analyze the relationships of specific characters and the malicious narrator created by Machado de Assis, with a character that emerged in the 17th century English: the libertine. From Don Juan transposed into English theater in that century to the eighteenth-century French roman de libertinage, he is characterized by erotic-loving impetus and elitist, cruel and amoral cynicism. In four key tales of Machado – “Missa do Galo” [Rooster's Mass], “Singular ocorrência” [Singular Occurrence], “D. Paula” [Mrs. Paula] and “Almas agradecidas” [Grateful Souls] – we note the higher incidence of female libertines. Character traits are found in the typical narrator of the author, in the novels of the mature phase. From the critical debate about such a narrator, we propose that in its constitution the influence of 17th century French moralists, including their precursors (eg, Castiglione and Gracián), is greater than that of Voltaire. This would indicate this narrator's closeness to the amoral pessimism and libertine aversion to transcendence. Finally, we compare this narrator with that of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Like the Brazilian author, Borges created an elitist and cynical narrator, with the same ironic disposition of the premodern literary tradition. If the elements of the fantasy-horror tales created by Borges push the two authors apart, both reflect the cruel indifference of the elitist tone on a continent marked by violent social inequality.