Machado, um ladrão de palavras ou A narrativa entre o próprio e o alheio

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a reading of the narrative composition of Esaú e Jacó (1904), based on some of the quotations in the novel. In this sense, we intend to observe Machado de Assis as a word thief, who uses excerpts from other authors to transform them into his own, by means of a cultural transgression. To do this, we will take as our starting point Silviano Santiago's theoretical assumptions in his essays "O entre-lugar do discurso latino-americano" (1971) and "Apesar de dependente, universal" (1978), and, secondly, we will use the readings proposed by Antoine Compagnon, in “O trabalho da citação” (1996), and by Michel Schneider, in “Ladrão de palavras” (1990). Thus, by means of a bibliographical review of these authors, linked in turn to the theoretical-fictional contributions of Jorge Luis Borges (1944), this article seeks, in general terms, to develop a reading that encompasses the work of quotation through which the 1904 novel is constructed and has, as a result, the contribution to the critic fortune of Machado de Assis.