Machado de Assis's Philosopher or Dog?
From Serial to Book Form

Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva

Cover of Machado de Assis's Philosopher or Dog?

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

23 April 2010  •  206pp

ISBN: 978-1-906540-45-6 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ModernPortugueseFiction

The great Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) published five of his nine novels as feuilletons in daily newspapers or fortnightly women’s magazines. How were the structure and themes of those novels entangled with this serial-publication form? In Silva’s important new study, textual scholarship, critical theory and the history of the book are combined in order to trace this relationship. The most important case study is an extended consideration of Philosopher or Dog? (1891), the novel after which he abandoned the feuilleton. Through a comparison of the serial and book versions of Philosopher or Dog? and a thorough study of the periodical in which it appeared, the international women’s magazine The Season, Silva analyses the changes which the genre novel was undergoing at the end of the nineteenth century: the decline of the serial, and the standardisation of female press.

Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva completed a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford and is now Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Reviews:

  • ‘The information drawn from the extensive archival research is without doubt one of the main merits of this study. The author found several previously unlocated chapters of the serialized form of the novel that were not transcribed in the critical edition of the text. The first part of the book in particular makes a solid contribution to Machadian studies: the careful reading of the serialized text in relation to its historical, literary and cultural context provides a new approach to the genesis of the text.’ — Kathryn Sanchez, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 110.4, September 2013, 1071-72
  • ‘An excellent example of how textual criticism may be put to good use. The book studies the two main versions of a text in holistic ways, revealing contextual information that is important for understanding the work. In addition, it uses documentation of an author’s dissatisfaction with one version, and presumed satisfaction with another, to discover core esthetic values and practices.’ — Paul Dixon, Ellipsis 10, 2012, 183-85
  • ‘De fato, o texto interessará sobremaneira tanto ao leitor crítico brasileiro como à crítica internacional que estude as relações entre a formação do romance e seus modos de circulação na segunda metade do século XIX, já que Machado de Assis não faz uso, obrigatoriamente, das mesmas soluções encontradas nas práticas europeias. Resta-nos, finalmente, uma importante análise da especificidade machadiana diante do cenário europeu, o que nos permite uma liberação crítica com relação ao tratamento da produção europeia como fonte e, por que não, uma problematização do conceito de fonte.’ — Verónica Galíndez-Jorge, Machado de Assis em linha 3.6, December 2010, 110-14

Bibliography entry:

Silva, Ana Cláudia Suriani da, Machado de Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form (Legenda, 2010)

First footnote reference: 35 Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva, Machado de Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form (Legenda, 2010), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Silva, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Silva, Ana Cláudia Suriani da. 2010. Machado de Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Silva 2010: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Silva 2010: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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