The context of publication and the prologue of "Resurrection": Machado de Assis and the Knights of the national cause and the romantic order

Abstract

I present a synchronic reading of the first prologue of Resurrection and I also briefly explore the novel by taking into consideration Machado de Assis’ literary path, his positioning and the novel’s context. The main goal is to show how Machado de Assis states in the prologue that he adapted to Quintino Bocaiúva’s requirements from 1863, when the latter was then a preceptor of the Realist theatre and criticized Machado for not taking part in the national cause of Brazilian Romanticism: that of the moral formation of the reader. Machado relates to the other writers, then presenting his novel according to Bocaiúva’s critique, which is, by the way, a paradigm validated by Brazilian Romanticism theory. I observe how Machado in the 1872 context enters in a dialogue with the 1863 critic and how the novel answers to Bocaiúva’s demands. Hypothesis: the presence of an Aesop’s fable sustains the idea that the novel conforms to the Romantic order and follows one of national cause knights, Quintino Bocaiúva.